Final Fantasy X3: A Daughter's Quest
by icehead
Summary: 17 peaceful years have passed since Yuna and Tidus were reunited, and their daughter Riza has grown up happy. Now, trouble brews in Spira again, and Riza and her friends must begin a journey of their own.
1. An Unhappy Messenger

You never see the big changes coming. You always think the idyllic times will last forever, and you're never prepared for it when they end.

So of course, the day everything changed for me was a day like any other. My name is Riza; I'm sixteen, and up to that day I'd lived all my life on Besaid Island. I'd snuck off to the beach by myself again, just like my parents kept telling me not to. My feet propelled me through the beautiful blue depths, and around me was nothing but vast, peaceful serenity.

The sea has always been something of an escape for me; I was practically born a celebrity, as the daughter of the High Summoner who saved the world. People from all over Spira have always been flocking to our island to meet my mother, or to meet me. "What's it like being the daughter of Lady Yuna?" people have always asked me. It's enough to drive a girl crazy. As much as I love the village I grew up in and the people in it, once in a while it helps to slip off into the peace of the sea with no one around.

Almost as soon as my head breached the surface and I let out the breath I'd been holding, I heard the call: "Heads up!" I spun around just in time to see the blitzball flying at my head. I had seconds to react, but that's always been more than enough for me. I ducked down under the water, and then shot upwards, butting the ball in its path with my head, and then twirled around in the air to give it a quick kick before I splashed back down. My head surfaced again in time to see Vidina catch the projectile I'd kicked back at him just as it struck him square in the gut.

I didn't even realize how hard I'd kicked that ball until I swam back to shore and saw Vidina still trying to get his breath back. "Wow, Riza girl, you been practicing without me?"

"Maybe," I said, giving him a lopsided grin. "Maybe I'm just naturally good."

"We all better hope so," said a third person. I turned my head to the voice, noticing for the first time that Farru was on the beach too, carrying that long wooden staff he always seemed to have with him. I shouldn't have been surprised, though; unlike me, Vidina had never been rebellious enough to go down to the beach alone. "We're gonna need to be good once the season starts."

The start of the blitzball season was not far away, and Vidina, Farru and I had been practicing in hopes that Vidina's father would let us play on the Besaid Aurochs. There wasn't much doubt in my mind that Vidina and I would be let on the team; after all, Vidina was Wakka's son, and I was just good, not that I mean to brag. Farru I wasn't so sure about; his heart wasn't in it quite as much, and he was still having some difficulty.

"So, you boys missed me so much you had to come down here to find me?" I asked.

"Well, actually…" Farru began, but was cut off when somebody suddenly grabbed me from behind and pulled me to him.

"Actually, I was the one who wanted to find you."

I sighed. "Oh. Hi, Daddy."

"Riza, haven't I told thousands of times not to go wandering off alone?"

"Daddy, come on, nobody's seen any fiends on this island in years!"

"They could always come back, you know," Vidina said. "Spira's in no danger of runnin' out."

"Personally, I wouldn't mind if they did come back," Farru said, waving his staff about as if warding off fiends. "I'm still not getting any better at hitting a blitzball, so I could use something else I could hit."

"Please," I muttered. "If a fiend showed up, you'd run like a little girl. But I'd like to see how a fiend would deal with me!" I was really only teasing Farru; I knew he was no coward.

"Come on, hero girl," my father said, patting my back. "Let's get back to the village before your mother sends another search party after you."

I shrugged and nodded, and we began our trek along the path through the lush and beautiful green of the island back to the village. Farru and Vidina walked in front, chatting about the coming season. Farru was expressing his doubts, saying he thought maybe he should give up trying to be a blitzer when he wasn't one. He'd really only started practicing with us in the first place because he was our friend and didn't want to be left out, but he was now starting to get the feeling that the sport just wasn't his calling. I would never have said it out loud, but I couldn't help but think he was right.

Vidina apparently didn't think the same way. "Hey, don't give up yet. There's still time before the season starts, you know. You can do it, ya?"

I just smiled and quietly chuckled to myself, thankful that the two of them weren't looking back at me. Suddenly dad put a hand on my shoulder and whispered to me, "I saw that kick you did. I think we're going to have a pretty successful season this year."

I stopped, and then gave a happy little squeak and threw my arms around his midsection. "Thank you Daddy!"

Farru and Vidina stopped and were staring at me now. "What'd we miss?" Vidina asked.

"Nothing," I grinned, still holding my dad in a death grip. "Everything's fine."

None of us started walking again until I let go of him. Then Farru and Vidina shrugged and kept on going. I resumed walking with a big smile on my face. I hadn't had much doubt that someone would want me to play for the Aurochs, but hearing someone actually say it, even if he was my dad, was enough to get me excited.

"You know," my dad said, "that was the way I met Vidina's dad."

"What was?"

"It was just like what you did back there. I was swimming out off shore after being thrown off a boat, someone threw a blitzball my way and I kicked it back, and then Wakka asked me to play on his team. Seeing you kick that ball like that really took me back."

My father had been a blitzer since before he was my age, and the Aurochs had won several championships because of him. In fact, people often told me that before he came to Besaid the Aurochs were the worst team in Spira. So being complimented on your skills by someone like that was not something to sniff at.

Farru took a few steps ahead to practice what looked like combat moves with his staff as he walked, as he often did. I didn't know why he bothered, really; it had been over five years since any fiends had been seen on Besaid. When we were little, we had always needed an escort to get from the village to the beach and back to protect us from fiends, but over the years they started fading out until there were none left. Everybody said it was my mother's doing; that the Eternal Calm she brought about was really taking hold, and Spira was finally becoming a true place of peace.

We were soon to find out how wrong they were.

Vidina stopped suddenly, looking up to the sky. "You guys hear that?"

We all stopped, straining to hear… and then we heard it: the distant humming of a giant machina. Like an airship. We turned our heads in the direction of the noise, and saw the bright red airship making its approach. "Is that the Celsius?" I said.

"I think it is!" Vidina said. "Looks like Paine's come to visit!"

We broke into a run. When we reached the altar at the edge of the cliff where the path to the village forked, we saw the Celsius lowering down for a landing, and just as it began to settle we saw its bay doors opening, and two figures emerged. Paine had not come alone.

We were all excited at first to see that Rikku had come for a visit too, but as we bounded up to greet them, we slowed to a stop when we noticed the looks on their faces. Rikku's face had the streaks of someone who had been crying a lot, and while Paine was not exactly known for being cheery, even she looked unusually somber. In an instant we had gone from delight at receiving our visitors to an impending feeling of doom and gloom.

"Rikku? Paine?" my father asked.

"Tidus!" Rikku sobbed, throwing her arms around him.

"Hey, hey! What's wrong?"

"I'm sorry we have to visit you under these circumstances," Paine said.

"Under what circumstances?" I asked.

"We should get to the village," was her answer. "Yuna and the others will want to hear this." Paine stepped past us and continued along the path, and we all began following after her at a steady pace. I was torn now, agonizingly curious as to what had brought them here, but not sure I wanted to find out.

We arrived at the village to find a small crowd had gathered to greet the visitors, including Vidina's parents. "Mom, Dad, look who dropped by!"

"Hey, you two! How ya…" Wakka left his greeting unfinished, the answer to the question he was about to ask evident enough on their faces.

"Hello, Wakka, Lulu," Paine said in a low drawl. "Where's Yuna?"

"I'm right here." All our eyes turned to the flap of my family's tent, where my mother was emerging. My mother, the High Summoner Yuna who destroyed the endless evil that was Sin; the most famous living person in Spira; the person hundreds of people came to Besaid each year to see. "Hi Rikku, Paine," she said as she approached. "It's so good to see—"

"Oh Yunie!" Rikku cried, running to my mother and enveloping her in a sobbing embrace.

"Rikku?" My mom put her hands on Rikku's back. They held each other a moment, and then Mom pulled Rikku away and look straight at me. "I'll get to you later," she warned. I would have been more fazed by that were it not for the dark cloud our visitors had carried with them.

"I'm afraid we have to be the bearers of bad news," Paine said.

"What's happened?" my mom said.

"It's Kimahri," said Paine, and then paused as she mustered the strength to say the next two words. "…He's dead."

The murmuring crowd fell to a dead hush, the only sound being my mother's gasp as her hands came up to her open mouth. "Kimahri," said Wakka solemnly.

"No," Lulu said.

I was actually ashamed that I didn't feel as sad about this as most of the crowd seemed to be. I knew who Kimahri was; I'd met him once when my mother performed at a concert in Luca when I was ten, and the Ronso elder showed up to watch her. When she first introduced me to him, initially I shrunk back in fear of the big blue beast, until he knelt down in front of me and said, "Kimahri happy to meet daughter of Yuna. Riza pretty girl. Riza grow into strong woman, like mother. Of this Kimahri sure."

And now that proud Ronso was gone. I was definitely sorry about it, but having only met him once I didn't know him well enough to shed any tears. Not like the ones that were trickling down my mother's face. "How did it happen?" my dad asked.

"The Ronso who showed up in Luca to tell me didn't give me that detail," Paine said. "I took the Celsius to fetch Rikku from Bikanel as soon as I found out, and then came here to tell you. The Ronso are holding a memorial for him tomorrow on Mt. Gagazet. I thought you'd like to be there."

"Oh, we'll be there, ya!" Wakka said. "Don't nobody say we won't!"

"Of course we'll be there," my mother said.

"Yeah, we owe it to the big guy," said my dad.

The crowd was starting to break apart, and everyone old enough to remember the time Kimahri had lived on Besaid was talking about him. Both Vidina's parents and mine moved off, talking with Rikku and Paine for a moment, before they started looking in our direction, and Lulu stepped away from them and approached her son.

"Vidina," she said, "It's alright with us if you don't want to accompany us. I know Kimahri didn't mean to you what he did to us, and you're old enough to make your own decisions."

"It's okay, Ma, I'll go," Vidina said.

"Yeah, me too," I said, stepping up to Vidina's side. I could see my parents were happy about that.

"Well, I guess I might as well go too," Farru said.

"You sure?" Vidina asked. "I mean you never met the guy."

"Hey, what am I gonna do without you guys around here?" Farru shrugged. Vidina and I looked at each other and grinned.

"We'll be leaving for Mt. Gagazet tomorrow morning," Paine announced. "Anyone who's planning on going should be ready then." We all nodded.

"Don't think you're off the hook, young lady," my mother said suddenly, pointing a finger at me. "You and I are still going to have a talk later."

"Yes, Mom," I muttered.

With that my mom and dad turned back to our tent, and I rolled my eyes and slumped my shoulders. Vidina put a hand on my shoulder. "Look at it this way: whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger. And after the number of times you've been through this, I'd say you're already pretty strong, ya?"

I smiled at him. "Thanks, Vidina."

"So this Kimahri," Farru said, stepping up to my side, "he was supposed to be one of your mom's guardians back when she was a summoner, right?"

"Yep, just like my parents were," Vidina said.

"And my dad," I added.

"I wonder what that must have been like, to travel all across Spira, fighting off fiends left and right," Farru said wistfully, brandishing his staff again. Then he noticed the way Vidina and I were looking at him. "What?"

"Farru, am I mistaken, or are you bored here?" Vidina asked.

"Is that why you're going to Gagazet with us?" I asked. "Because you're hoping to run into fiends you can fight?"

"No, no! I seriously just want to pay my respects to this guy who braved all the dangers of Spira… okay, I guess I am getting a little antsy around here. It's just this island has been too quiet all these years; I need some excitement! That's why I was happy when you guys said you wanted to play blitzball, and why I tried to get into it with you, but it's not working for me, you know?"

"You know," I said after a moment's pause, "maybe he's right. Maybe we could use a little excitement."

"The blitzball season coming up doesn't excite you enough?" Vidina said. "I've been waiting for the chance to play on the Aurochs my whole life!"

"Hey, I'm looking forward to playing blitzball as much as you are," I said. "But maybe after that, we can ask Paine to take us on the Celsius. We could become sphere hunters or something, like my mom used to be. Go around, get in adventures, have fun?"

"Now that sounds like a plan!" Farru grinned. "In fact, why do we even have to wait until blitzball season? It's not as though being on an airship is going to keep us from getting to Luca when the season starts!"

"Yeah, you're right!" I beamed at him. "What do you say we ask Paine about it tomorrow after Kimahri's service? Maybe it can be our way of honoring Kimahri's memory; we can start by looking for spheres that we can share with the Ronso, you know, ones that might mean something to them, and then see where it goes from there."

We turned our eyes to Vidina, who had yet to express interest in what we were proposing. It all hinged on him now. He hesitated, and then shrugged and said "Sure, why not."

"Yes!" I cheered, holding out a fist. The three of us knocked our fists together. We all knew at that moment that things were about change for us. We had no idea just how much they were about to change. We thought we were about seize control of our fates; as it would turn out, our fates were about to seize us.


	2. A Memorial Interrupted

Vidina and I spent most of the trip on the Celsius down in the engine room, practicing our blitzball moves. Farru tried joining us for a while but after he fell on his face trying to do a pass, he resigned from trying and switched to practicing his combat moves with his staff.

When we heard the engines slow and felt the airship begin its decent, I caught the flying ball I'd been preparing to kick back to Vidina, and after I tossed it to him we headed up to the bridge and followed everyone to the exit. Before leaving the airship we were given thick coats to wear outside. It was much heavier than I'd ever dressed; it's always sunny and warm in Besaid, and while my home island wasn't the only place in Spira I'd ever been, stepping outside onto the snowy peaks of Mt. Gagazet for the first time was quite a shock to the system.

As soon as we stepped off the airship, Ronso came from all over to shower greetings and condolences on my mother. "Ronso honored to receive Lady Yuna," they'd say. "Ronso wish visit did not have to be for sad reason."

"Me too," she'd say, and give the ones who seemed particularly saddened a sympathetic touch on the cheek.

I got quite a bit of attention myself. "Daughter of Lady Yuna come to pay respects to Elder Kimahri. Ronso honored." I didn't really know what to say in response, so I just smiled and nodded, and told them "thank you."

Though it was my first time seeing this place, I got the distinct impression it was rare for this many people to be gathered here at once. The entire Ronso nation must have been standing around on the peak, as well as dozens of other people from all over Spira. I had some small nagging fear that with this big a crowd someone might get pushed over the edge.

All of us stood before the great statue of Kimahri. For a long time I'd thought that all Ronso looked the same, but I definitely recognized the countenance of the fearsome but kind creature I'd met in Luca years ago. I may not have known him well enough to miss him, but looking at that statue and seeing the way my mom was looking at it, I knew I really was sad he was dead, if for no other reason than knowing my mom was going to miss him.

One of the Ronso stepped up in front of the crowd. "Kimahri once looked down on as small Ronso, mocked for broken horn," he said. "Kimahri proved Kimahri worthy of honor. Garik Ronso remember. Garik once try to make war on Guado, but Kimahri stopped Garik from making mistake. Where Garik saw only hate, Kimahri saw peace. Garik know Garik not as wise as Elder Kimahri, but Garik strive to lead Ronso now in Kimahri's place." Then Garik turned his eyes to my mom, and extended a hand. "Now Ronso hear words of Lady Yuna."

My mom looked around, apparently not having expected this, and saw all the Ronso looking at her. She stepped forward, looking up at Kimahri's statue. She hesitated for a while, and I saw a few tears go down her face. Then at last she began to speak: "It's been a long time since I needed his protection… but I remember, ever since I was a child, whenever he was by my side I felt safe. I always knew he would die before he let me come to harm. And then when I was no longer a summoner and he was no longer my guardian, he gave the same kind of devotion to his new role. Even when he had his doubts about his ability to be a leader, I had none. He was the bravest, most loyal person I ever knew."

She bowed her head, and the Ronso all bowed theirs. When they raised them again, Garik Ronso thrust a fist into the air and roared, "Kimahri!"

"Kimahri!" the Ronso all echoed. "Kimahri!"

The chant spread, until all of us were raising our fists and shouting Kimahri's name. If we shouted loud enough, we were certain that Kimahri would hear us even from the Farplane.

When the chant died down, the crowd began to dissolve and people began talking amongst each other, sharing memories of their fallen hero. Having none of my own to share other than the one time I met him, I began to wander off. I found myself wishing I'd known him better; that he hadn't been so bound to his duties to the Ronso that he could've paid a visit to Besaid once in a while, or that my parents could have brought me here to Mt. Gagazet some time before today. Everyone here had such a high opinion of him; I felt left out.

I stopped and looked up when my feet brought me to another statue. This one was of my mother, when she was not much older than me. With a horn protruding from her forehead. I raised an eyebrow and cocked my head at it. I looked behind me at the sound of approaching footsteps, as Vidina and Farru came to join me, both of them looking up at the statue. "Your mama's got something sticking out of her face, ya?" Vidina joked.

"You know," Farru said, smiling and folding his arms, "I think she looks better that way."

"You do, do you?" my mom said. We startled slightly at her approach, Farru especially.

"Lady Yuna, forgive me," Farru said, humble as always in her presence.

"It's alright, you're not the first person to make jokes about this thing. I always thought it was a little ugly, but I was flattered by it."

"If someone made a statue of me that looked like that, I'm not sure how flattered I'd be," I said.

"Yuna!" someone called. We turned to see Paine approaching, carrying her sword with her, with a dark-haired young woman in a long purple coat in tow. She stuck her sword into the ground and said, "I have someone here who has something to show you."

"Lady Yuna, it's an honor," the girl said. "My name is Nadaleen." She reached into her coat and produced a sphere which she held out for my mom. "Kimahri recorded this sphere a few days before he died and asked me to give it to you."

My mom carefully took the sphere from her. "How did you know Kimahri?" she asked.

"I met him in Bevelle several days ago. He and I and someone else were investigating some… strange things that had been happening."

"Strange things?"

Nadaleen stiffened, and hesitated before answering. "Perhaps you should watch the sphere. Let Kimahri explain."

My mom looked around at us, and we all huddled together to watch as the recording began playing. Kimahri's proud visage appeared on the sphere, and behind him were the great halls of a massive temple. "Hello, Yuna," Kimahri spoke. "If Yuna watching this, then Kimahri gone, and Kimahri failed. Yuna must finish Kimahri's task. Kimahri not happy to ask this of Yuna, but task important.

"Three days ago, aeon Bahamut appeared on mountain and attacked Ronso. Kimahri and Ronso fended off attack, and thankfully not many Ronso hurt before aeon disappeared. But Kimahri wonder where aeon come from and why attack Ronso. Kimahri came to Bevelle, where aeon Bahamut once summoned from, to search for answer. But Kimahri only find more mysteries. Aeons attacked other places also. New Praetor Roumsey claim to know nothing, but Kimahri not convinced. Something happening in New Yevon, and Kimahri must stop it before more aeons attack and more people hurt. But if Kimahri fail, Yuna must go to Bevelle and learn truth. Good luck to all."

The message ended, and the image on the sphere faded out. The look on my mother's face was one I'd never seen before. "Rogue aeons?" she said. "How is that possible?" I'd never seen an aeon before, but I knew what one was. My mom had always described them as being incredible and empowering things to stand behind, almost like gods. My dad always just said they were "really cool, but a little scary."

"I saw it for myself in Kilika," Nadaleen said. "Several days ago a loud commotion arose in the temple. Many of our warriors went in to investigate, prepared for anything except what they found. It was an aeon. It was the great fire beast."

"Ifrit?" my mom said.

"We somehow managed to subdue it before it did too much damage, and it seemed to disappear for no apparent reason. And then just like Kimahri, I went to Bevelle to get to the bottom of it. Actually, we would have sent my mother, but she was hurt while trying to calm the aeon. Like you, she used to be a summoner, so she thought she might be able pacify it without needing to fight."

"A summoner?" my mom said. "Out of Kilika? Wait, are you… are you Dona's daughter?"

Nadaleen nodded. "My parents are the former summoner Dona and her former guardian Barthello."

"Oh! Your mother… is she…?"

"She's going to be fine."

My mom sighed with relief. "But wait," she said, "how did you know to look in Bevelle?"

"Because," Nadaleen said, then paused, "…just before it disappeared, the aeon… it spoke."

"What?"

"It only said two words. It said 'New Yevon.' And then it vanished."

"The aeon actually spoke?" Paine asked.

"Yes, it came as quite a surprise to us all," Nadaleen nodded.

Now it was my turn to ask a question. "You said there was someone else besides you and Kimahri who was investigating these incidents in Bevelle. Who was that?"

"His name is Camall. He's an Al Bhed mechanic who was working in Djose when an aeon attacked there too. Quite an inventive guy, actually. He carries machina weapons he built himself."

"Where is he now?" Paine asked.

Nadaleen started to answer, but her response suddenly died on her lips. All at once we began hearing a loud rumbling, and then we began to feel the mountain trembling beneath our feet. And then it started progressing from trembling to shaking. I lost my balance and fell onto my hands and knees, and looked around me at the chaos that had suddenly arisen out of nowhere. My dad struggled to keep his footing as he hurried in our direction, as did Wakka and Lulu. I attempted to stand up, but stumbled off to the left and dropped to my knees again. My mom reached up to take my dad's hand, and then he began reaching out to me. I rose to one foot and stretched out my arm for him, but then I heard it.

— CRACK—

I looked down. The ground at my feet was starting to split open. And as the mountain continued to shake, the fissure steadily spread. With more urgency now, I reached harder, trying desperately to take my dad's hand, but then I felt my footing giving way. I looked down again, and saw only blackness; I looked up again, and I saw my dad's face receding away, his hand still reaching for me.

Down into darkness I tumbled. I fell and fell and fell until—

THUD

…

…

I don't know how long I lay there, barely conscious, before I finally lifted my head with a grunt. I was fortunate enough to have landed on soft dirt, so while I would definitely have a few bruises it was nothing I wouldn't recover from. The mountain had finally stopped its shaking, though I still shook a little as I attempted to get on my feet. A soft groan to my right then told me I was not alone, and I instantly recognized the voice, too. "Vidina?"

As my eyes began adjusting to the gloom, I managed to make out Vidina's form lying face down in the dirt, with his blitzball resting about two feet from him. As he started stirring, I moved to help him up, lifting him up by the shoulders. "Vidina? Are you okay?"

He sat up and blinked, holding a hand to his head. "Uh… who dropped the house on me?"

"Good to see you're both okay," said Farru's voice. I turned my head and saw him limping toward us, supporting his weight on his staff.

"Yeah, we are," I said. "You?"

"I'll be fine."

I heard a feminine voice groan and saw another figure rise up behind Farru. It took me a moment to identify who she was. "Paine?"

"I'm alright," she said, shaking her head and running her fingers through her silver hair. "I've had worse falls than that. Is anyone else down here?"

"I am," said one more voice. It was Nadaleen. I saw her silhouette rise to her feet and step forward out of the darkness. "My head hurts a little, but I don't think there's any serious damage."

"Well, I think we should count our blessings," Farru said. "That could've been a lot worse."

"Yeah, but now how do we get out of here?" Vidina said.

We began looking around through the dark cave, and I observed the rough and craggy wall in front of me. "It looks like it won't be too hard to climb out of here," I said. We looked upwards to the opening above us through which we could see the cloudy sky over Gagazet. "The opening isn't that high, either."

"A good thing, too," Nadaleen said, "or we'd probably be dead."

"Come on," I said, walking toward the wall. "Let's get out of here. We gotta make sure everyone else is okay up there."

"Wait," Paine said suddenly, holding a hand up. "Do you hear that?"

All of us fell silent, listening. I heard a deep, rumbling growl, followed by the thunder and shaking of giant footsteps. Slowly I began to turn, when Farru suddenly dove on me and shouted "Look out!" just before a huge ball of flame whooshed through the air where I'd been standing.

A huge reptilian creature with a long neck and snaking tail, curved spines jutting out all along the length of its back and down its tail, and flames spouting from its roaring mouth, was standing in front of us. Never in my life had I ever seen a fiend like this. We had fallen into the domain of this flame dragon, and it was angry.

"Everyone, stand your ground!" Paine commanded, gripping her sword.

_With what?_ I thought. I was unarmed, and the last time I'd even seen a fiend of any kind I was still a child who needed someone bigger to take them out for me. What could I do?

"Let's see how it likes this," Nadaleen said, making a big wave with her arm. Just before I saw the result, I realized what she was doing: Nadaleen was a black mage, and she was attacking the fiend with magic. There was a flash of white and a burst of frost around its head, and suddenly the fire in its mouth went out and a sheen of ice appeared on its scales around its head and neck. The flame dragon roared in response, and then its tail was swinging around, bringing its sharp spines up to shred Nadaleen apart. The girl ducked and dove in time to avoid being shredded, but still took the brunt of the creature's tail in her back, dropping to the ground winded.

"Heads up!" Vidina shouted. He brought one knee up, and chucked his blitzball as hard as he could at the fiend. The ball struck it square in the face, and it reared back and howled. The ball rebounded and went flying in Farru's general direction. Farru hoisted his staff, and when the ball came to him he spun around and swatted it with the bottom end, sending it flying right back to hit the flame dragon again.

This time the ball rebounded off the roaring creature and went flying upwards, but was headed more towards me. It was far too high for me to hit as it was, but true blitzers never back down from a challenge like that. I turned and began running my way up the craggy slope of the wall behind me, and then vaulted off, sailing through the air to meet the round projectile, and I flipped over in midair to give it my hardest kick. The ball struck the fiend for a third time, causing it to rear back on its hind legs and howl its loudest as I landed on the ground in a three-point stance.

The monster was too busy roaring to notice what, or I should say who, was beneath it as it came back down, waiting for it. Paine was ready, and just as it was about to come down on top of her, her sword flashed in an upward arc, digging into its neck. She pushed hard, trying to slice the rest of the way through, but the fiend continued to struggle even as she summoned its demise. The flames sprouted in its mouth again, and I saw it preparing to launch a last, desperate breath of fire straight at me. Luckily Nadaleen was still conscious enough to throw out another blizzard spell that erupted in its face, stopping its attack and making it reel back enough for Paine to finish what she was doing and cut the rest of the way through its neck. The monster gasped one last time before I saw the lost souls that had formed the beast beginning to disperse, departing for the Farplane, and the fiend began to fade.

For a while I simply stayed there, crouched on one knee with one hand on the ground, collecting my thoughts. Vidina picked up his blitzball and went to help Nadaleen up off the ground, while Paine wiped off her blade. "Well done, all of you," she said.

"I never thought there'd be a fiend like that living inside of Mt. Gagazet," Farru said.

"Believe it," Paine said. "I once encountered a fiend like that living underneath Besaid." The three of us who lived there went dead silent after that comment.

"We should get out of here before we meet anything else that might live down here," Nadaleen suggested.

"I think that's a good idea," Vidina nodded.

And so we proceeded to ascend the craggy slope of the wall of the cave, heading towards the light above us. About halfway up, however, Vidina said, "Hey, something's not right here."

"We'll be happy to talk about that once we get up top," Farru grunted, hoisting himself upward.

"Why don't we hear anyone calling for us? Shouldn't there be people up there trying to find out if we're alright?"

All of us stopped where we were, staring up at the opening, listening for the sounds of the voices of people who should have been up there. All we got was silence. "Let's hurry," I said. We began climbing faster now, and finally reached the top and pulled ourselves out of the crack—and looked around us, unable to believe what we were seeing.

The mountain had been abandoned. Everyone was gone. Even the airships that had brought them here had vanished.

"What happened?" Vidina gaped, running around, desperately trying to find anyone. "Where is everyone? Ma? Dad?"

"They wouldn't just leave us, would they?" Farru gasped.

"No. They didn't." We looked towards Paine, who looked up at us from the broken Ronso spear that lay at her feet. "They were taken."

I felt a sick fear run through me as I looked around, seeing several weapons scattered here and there. I took some comfort in the fact that I didn't see any blood anywhere, but then I did see something that made me go cold. I stepped up to the sword lying on the ground; it was a sword I would know anywhere. There was no mistaking it, not with the way the blue blade shimmered like water. "This is the Brotherhood," I said, carefully picking it up. "This is my dad's sword!"

Questions of what had happened and what to do now whirled through my head, and ultimately all of us turned our eyes to Nadaleen. "Tell us what else you know," Paine commanded. "The timing is too convenient for this not to have something to do with what happened to Kimahri."

"I'm afraid I don't know much more than I've already told you," Nadaleen shrugged. "Kimahri did most of the detective work while we were in Bevelle. We met with Roumsey, the new Praetor of New Yevon, who as Kimahri said in his recording claimed to have no knowledge of the incidents with the rogue aeons, but I can tell you I don't trust him. When Kimahri gave me that sphere, he said he was going deeper into the temple to investigate, and that Camall and I weren't to follow him. Then a few days later, the followers of New Yevon brought him back, dead. Apparently he'd found something he shouldn't have."

"What about this Camall?" Farru asked. "Where is he now?"

"I'm not sure," Nadaleen said. "He could still be in Bevelle, or he might have returned to Djose by now."

"We should head to Bevelle," Paine said. "Something is obviously wrong there. Hopefully Camall will be there and we can ask him personally what he knows."

"But the airships are gone!" Vidina protested.

"Then we walk."

Vidina flinched.

"It'll take us nearly two days to get to Bevelle from here," Paine said, "and we're more than likely to encounter fiends on the way, so prepare yourselves." Farru dropped his staff and picked up a lance off the ground, which he waved around a little, finding it to be a weapon he could wield comfortably just as he did his staff. I meanwhile looked down at the sword in my hand and swung it about, getting a feel for its weight and balance. If anyone had done anything to hurt my parents, they were going to have me to deal with.


	3. The Mysterious Praetor

It was getting dark by the time we reached the base of the mountain, and not far before a bridge over a gorge, Paine decided we should make camp for the night. There wasn't much wood to find in the treeless area, but we did managed to scrounge together bits of what types of plants were around to make some kindling, and Nadaleen cast a quick fire spell to light the pile ablaze.

We sat there silently for a while around the fire. I stared for a long time at my father's sword that rested at my side, which I had put to quite some use that day. Paine was right; we had indeed encountered several fiends on the way down the mountain. I would always remember the first time I cut one down, a ravenous snow wolf whose teeth I barely jumped away from in time before I jumped back and sliced into it. And as I watched the pyreflies dispersing, I stood still, taking in the fact that I had just killed a fiend on my own for the first time, until Paine told us to keep moving.

I raised my head and looked back at the group sitting around the fire, and realized we were short one person. "Hey, where'd Vidina go?" I asked.

Farru pointed off into the distance. It was too dark to see very far, but I could hear a rhythmic knocking sound coming from the way Farru was pointing. I stood up and moved in that direction. I found Vidina tossing his blitzball against a rock wall and catching it as it bounced back to him. And when I got a look at his face, I could see he was deeply troubled. "Something wrong?" I asked. I instantly wished I'd phrased that differently.

"It wasn't supposed to go this way," he said, not turning to look at me, continuing to throw and catch the ball. "This was supposed to be just a simple memorial service, then back home, and wait for blitz season to start. Just this morning, that was my biggest worry: wondering how blitz was gonna go. Now I have to worry about whether my parents are even still alive."

"They're alive, Vidina. They've gotta be."

He caught the ball and turned to me now. "We don't know that! We don't know what happened up there, we don't know where they are, we don't know why this is happening… we don't know ANYTHING!" As he shouted that last word he flung his ball into the rock wall so hard that the rock actually cracked a little.

I caught the ball as it rebounded. "Worrying like this isn't going to help them," I said. "We'll find them, Vidina. I promise, we'll find them."

"And what happens if we don't?"

"We WILL find them!"

Vidina grunted and turned away from me, putting his fists on his hips. "I don't understand how you can be so sure of everything."

"It's called faith," I said. "Try having some."

"Faith," he sneered, throwing his hands up. "Faith. It's a nice word, but what does it really mean? You pretend like you know something but you don't? Is that what we're reduced to now? Is that all we've got to go on?"

My lip curled into a snarl. I tossed the ball down on the ground and marched up to him, forcibly turning him around to face me. "What are you suggesting we do?" I yelled into his face. "Just give up on them? Accept that they're dead? It's true, we don't know they're alive, but we don't know they're dead either, and until we do we can't give up! So yes, all we've got to go on is faith, but isn't that enough?"

For a long while we just stood there, huffing at each other, before I let go of him and turned away. "I wasn't suggesting we give up," he said at last. "I just can't stand not knowing."

"I want to believe my parents are alive too," I said. "But right now, believing is all we can do. Believe, and get to Bevelle so we can find out what is going on."

Vidina sighed. "Alright, Riza. I'll try to have faith."

I smiled, and lightly punched his shoulder. "Come on, let's get back to the others."

Vidina picked up his ball and we returned to the campfire, where we found the others staring up at us. "You two worked things out now?" Farru asked.

"What?"

"We could hear you yelling," Nadaleen said.

"Yeah, we worked things out," Vidina nodded, taking a seat by the fire. "For now, anyway."

"We should get some rest," Paine said as I sat down next to Vidina. "It'll take us most of tomorrow to cross the Calm Lands. Maybe more if we can't get transport."

"You mean an Al Bhed hover transport?" Farru said.

"Possibly. Or if nothing else, we should at least be able to get chocobos to ride."

"But you said 'if we can't get transport,'" Vidina added. "You think something might've happened in the Calm Lands too?"

"I think we can't take anything for granted at this point."

***

I will say this: the Calm Lands are beautiful. Perfect green grass and blue skies as far as the eye can see. It was a relief at least to see that whatever had happened on Gagazet had apparently not touched anything here; the tourist sites and Al Bhed outposts that we could see in the distance still looked like they were properly populated.

The Calm Lands weren't totally free of fiends, but there weren't many. I didn't have time to duck when I saw a nebiros flying at my head, but fortunately Vidina saw it and knocked it out of the air with his blitzball before I ended up getting a very unpleasant haircut. Other than that, though, the portion of our trip across the Calm Lands that we made on foot was blessedly uneventful.

During the days of Sin, the Calm Lands had only one travel agency where travelers could stop and rest on their journeys. Now there are several of them, most of them run by Al Bhed who now offer hover transport across the plains. We made our way to one such outpost, where the Al Bhed running it greeted us with welcoming smiles. "Could you use a rest, or a lift?" one of the Al Bhed offered.

"Yes, we need to get to Bevelle," Paine said.

"Um, we could also use a bit of food, if you've got any," I said. When Paine turned to look at me, I shrugged and added, "We haven't eaten since yesterday. You don't expect us to get to Bevelle on an empty stomach, do you?"

"The girl's got a point," Farru said. "We're not getting anywhere without some sustenance."

"Of course," the Al Bhed smiled. "We're always happy to cater to travelers."

We paid for breakfast and most of us sat down to eat. Paine remained standing, and stepped up to the Al Bhed gathered at the outpost, and then said, "Tu yho uv oui ghuf y syh hysat Camall?"

All of us stopped, staring up from whatever we were eating at her. I never had any idea that Paine spoke Al Bhed, and apparently neither did the others.

One of the Al Bhed stepped up. "E ghuf res. Ra mejac yd Djose, E pameaja."

"Cu E'ja raynt. Ryja oui caah res nalahdmo?"

"E's yvnyet hud. E raynt drana fyc yh ehletahd yd Djose yht ra fungat du ramb veq ed, pid hud silr suna dryh dryd. Fro, tu oui haat rec ramb?"

"Xieda buccepmo."

"Cunno E luimt hud pa suna ramb."

"Dryhg oui yhofyo."

Paine turned and sat down with us, while all of us continued gaping at her. "What was that all about?" Farru asked.

"I asked if any of them knew Camall," Paine answered calmly, picking up her food. "That one man said he knew him, but hasn't seen him recently."

"How come you never told us you speak Al Bhed?" Vidina said.

"You never asked."

We finished our meal and then got onboard the hover transport. One of the Al Bhed hopped into the driver's seat and we zoomed across the plains. We did pass a few fiends that I saw along the way, but all of them were smaller, weaker fiends; lupines and wasps mostly. Nothing big. Sometime around mid-afternoon, the hover pulled to a stop just outside the path leading to Macalania Woods, and we dismounted. "It's not far to Bevelle from here," the driver said.

"Thank you, we know the way," Paine said.

The driver turned his vehicle around and began speeding back to the outpost while we continued on the path, moving around a cliff face, and before long the wide open plains of the Calm Lands gave way to the densely brushed and wooded trails of Macalania Woods. Macalania is also beautiful, I must say, but in an entirely different way. The way light bounces off the plants gives the whole forest a sort of watery blue glow; it's eerie and mystifying. I found myself wanting to continue exploring, and see all the places in Spira where I'd never been so that I could appreciate the true beauty of it all. But that would have to wait; though as it would soon turn out, not as long as I thought.

After walking for barely an hour, Paine guided us down a trail where we began to see the trees parting. Before long, we were no longer walking on woodland trails but on the paved bridge leading to the gates of Bevelle. Two guards stopped us briefly to ask our business in Bevelle, and Paine started to answer, but then I stepped up and told them I was High Summoner Yuna's daughter. At that point, all questions were dropped and the guards ushered us in happily.

Now I said already that I thought the Calm Lands and Macalania Woods were both beautiful in their own ways, but Bevelle absolutely took my breath away. The city was incredible. As we made our way across the long bridge, I couldn't stop staring at the massive gates and the magnificent peaks of the buildings beyond. This was supposed to be where my mother was born, and yet she never spoke especially highly of this place. At that particular moment, I couldn't imagine why.

I soon found out that not all of us felt the same way. "It feels eerie coming here again," Nadaleen said, clutching her arms as if she were cold. "After what happened to Kimahri I have such a bad feeling about this place."

"Hey, don't you worry," Farru said, brandishing his lance. "As long as I'm here, nothing's going to happen to you!"

Nadaleen smiled at him. I rolled my eyes and snorted. "I like your zeal, Farru," I said, "but who do you expect is gonna protect you?"

"Give me my moment, will you?"

We came to the main gate of Bevelle, and one of the robed priests stepped up to greet us. "Hello, welcome to—" He stopped suddenly when he got a look at me. "Lady Riza!" he gasped, giving me the Yevon's prayer. "Daughter of High Summoner Yuna, you honor us with your presence! To what do we owe this pleasure?"

"We want to talk to this new Praetor of yours, this Roumsey guy," I said, folding my arms.

The priest's enthusiasm dampened slightly. Looking back on it, I think that was just because I was a little blunt with him, but at the time I simply found it suspicious. "I believe Praetor Roumsey is otherwise occupied at the moment…"

"We'd be willing to wait for him," Paine offered.

"All right, then," the priest said. "Follow me."

He led us through the gates, and we made our way into the grandiose halls of Bevelle Palace. Many priests gave us the Yevon prayer as we passed, and I think most of them were looking right at me as they did. It's the kind of treatment I've gotten used to just for being my mother's daughter. We were led onto a floating lift platform and carried up to the levels above, where the priest guided us to the praetor's audience chamber. "Wait here, please," he said. "I shall summon Praetor Roumsey."

After he left and shut the doors behind him, we set our weapons down by the doors and Vidina, Farru and Nadaleen took seats around the edge of the room. Paine folded her arms and leaned against the wall while I started to pace. Nadaleen clutched her arms again and quite visibly shivered. Farru looked at her, and then got up from where he sat and sat down next to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "You alright?" he asked her.

"The sooner we leave this place, the sooner I will be," she said.

"I told you, nothing's gonna happen here," he said softly.

One of my eyebrows suddenly went up. "Farru, are you getting ideas in your head?"

He gave me a perplexed look. "What do you mean?"

"I mean you've been practically hanging onto Nadaleen's arm ever since we left Gagazet, and now that we're here you're acting like you're her Lord Zaon."

"She's right, you know?" Vidina put in. "You thinking you're gonna woo the damsel in distress?"

Farru awkwardly pulled his hand away from Nadaleen's shoulder. "I… I wasn't thinking anything like that," he said, sounding like he was trying to convince himself more than us. "She just seemed like she needed a friend."

"Mm-hmm," I said, folding my arms and smirking at him.

"I don't mind," Nadaleen spoke up. "I could use a bit of comfort as long as we're here." I dropped my amused look.

The doors opened, and a tall man in a long green robe entered. He had long white hair, blue eyes and an oily smile that seemed fixed into his face. His robe was lined with gold circles that bore the symbols of the fayth, and it dragged on the floor behind him and left his hands nearly hidden under its oversized cuffs. "I am Roumsey, Praetor of New Yevon," he said, giving us the Yevon prayer. He stepped forward, and then noticed Nadaleen. "Ah, Miss Nadaleen," he said. "A pleasure to see you again."

"Likewise," she lied.

Then he turned his attention to me, and began coming closer. "So this is Riza," he grinned, still coming closer, and starting to make me very uncomfortable. Once he was almost within kissing distance of me, he finally stopped, paused while looking down at me, and said, "Aren't you just as lovely as your mother."

I fought back the intense urge to back away from him. "Do you know my mom?" I asked.

"Who in all of Spira does not?"

"Praetor Roumsey," Paine said, thankfully calling his attention away from me. "We're here on business."

"Yes of course," he said, clasping his hands behind his back and moving away from me, finally giving me room to breathe. "What can I do for you today?"

"What do you know about the death of Kimahri Ronso?"

His oily smile dropped, but if you ask me it looked like the frown that appeared was forced. "Ah, yes, Kimahri. What a tragedy that was. I'm afraid there is little more I can tell you than what Miss Nadaleen surely already has. Bevelle has many secrets buried in its depths that I confess even I know little of. And if anything, Kimahri's untimely death proves the dangers of digging into those secrets."

"That's what you said about the rogue aeons," Nadaleen said. "You said whatever was causing them probably wasn't worth looking into."

"And it would appear that poor Kimahri proved me right, wouldn't it?" Roumsey said. "Let's consider the fact that none of the rogue aeons has killed anyone or caused any serious harm before any of you goes rushing off to share Kimahri's fate."

"We're not so sure that no serious harm has been done," Paine put in. She proceeded to explain to Roumsey everything that had happened during Kimahri's memorial service on Gagazet, after which he genuinely looked perturbed.

"By Yevon, this is troubling news indeed," he said. "The Lady Yuna is missing?"

"Along with my parents, and everyone else who was on the mountain except for the five of us," Vidina added. "They were snatched right up while we were down in that cave!"

"You're certain you know nothing about why this happened?" Paine asked.

"Certainly not," Roumsey shook his head, "but I assure you, the full resources of New Yevon will be put into solving this mystery. Now if you will excuse me."

"Wait," Nadaleen said, standing up suddenly and stopping Roumsey as he was heading for the doors. "Just tell me one more thing: is Camall still in Bevelle?"

"Camall…" Roumsey said, thinking. "…Yes, that friendly Al Bhed fellow. I'm afraid he left to return to Djose some days ago, my dear. If you desire his aid in this matter, I recommend you begin making your way there." With that, Roumsey approached the doors, turned to give us the Yevon prayer once more, and then left.

"I _so_ don't trust him," I muttered as soon as the doors closed behind him.

"I miss Baralai," Paine said.

"Whatever else Roumsey might be lying about," Nadaleen put in, "he's right about one thing: we should get going to Djose. We need to find Camall."

"We're already here in Bevelle," Vidina said, "and I think it's pretty clear that whatever's going wrong is coming from here. Do we really want to go all the way to Djose just to come back here once we find this guy?"

"I'll feel better about coming back here after we find out if Camall knows any more than we do," Nadaleen said. "Besides, right now, I still just want to get out of here as soon as possible."

"But what if my parents and everyone else are here and we're walking away from them?" Vidina insisted.

"What if they're not, and in trying to find them we end up like Kimahri?" Paine calmly replied. "Our best bet is to try to learn more about what's happening here before we do anything rash."

Vidina deflated, clearly torn. "Alright, we go to Djose."

"That's a long way to walk," Farru pointed out. "We'd better get moving."

"Yes, please," said Nadaleen.


	4. Nadaleen's Story

_I knocked my fist around on the stone slab of a door, not sure what I was looking for, but hoping I could come up with a way to get it open. "Forget it," Vidina said from far behind me. "That door's been sealed for years, ya? We're never gonna get in there."_

"_Never say never," I grinned. "All the times we've played in here, haven't you ever wanted to see the Chamber of the Fayth?"_

"_There's a reason our folks don't like us playing down here," Vidina said, "and they definitely don't want us in there. They say a bunch of fiends came out of there once!"_

"_Even better!" Farru grinned, gripping his staff as if in preparation to hit something with it. He stuck one end of it under the stone door and said, "I'll pry, you lift!"_

"_Come on, guys!" Vidina pleaded as Farru and I kept trying to get the slab open. "Can't we just kick the blitzball around some more?"_

"_That's all we ever do!" Farru said. "I want to kill some fiends!"_

"_Yeah, come on, let's be a little adventurous for a change!" I put in._

_I think Vidina was about to say something more, but it was not his voice that we heard a moment later. "What are you kids doing in here?"_

_Farru and I immediately stopped what we were doing and looked back to the entrance to the chamber, where Lulu strode in. "Ma!" Vidina gasped._

"_We weren't doing anything!" Farru insisted. "We weren't trying to get inside the Chamber of the Fayth!" _

_I rolled my eyes and slapped him on the arm. "Nice going, moron."_

_Fortunately for us, Lulu seemed more amused than angry. "Come on," she said, "let's get you out of here. We're going to have to have another talk about the three of you playing in the temple."_

_We all groaned and nodded, and proceeded to follow her out of the temple. But just as we were getting to the doorway, we suddenly heard the sound of something banging hard on stone. We turned, and saw the door to the Chamber of the Fayth had begun to crack. And whatever was in there banged on it again, and the crack spread. It got bigger and bigger as the thing inside kept trying to get out, until the slab finally shattered and went flying apart. And coming out of that doorway now was a huge monster that seemed to keep getting bigger as it entered into the room. It had huge wings and giant, bloody claws, and a wide, drooling mouth full of sword-like teeth that sent an earth shattering roar at us._

_I screamed and ducked my head down, covering my ears. And yet I could still hear the screams of the others—for a moment at least. Then they stopped. I heard only the monster's growls. Slowly I lifted my head up to look._

_They were all dead._

_And now it wanted me._

_I got up and ran. I ran out of the temple. I had to get away. And yet no matter how narrow the passages, I could still hear the creature behind me. I broke out into the daylight of the village, where I saw my mom and dad, and Wakka, and all the people of the village looking at me, wondering what was wrong. Suddenly I tripped and fell. When I looked up, it was upon me, ready to make me its next victim._

_But then its attention shifted. It wasn't interested in me anymore. It was interested in everyone else. It swooped over my head, and then I heard the screams of the dying. I didn't want to look, but I had to. I watched it strike down Wakka, and all the Aurochs, and then it turned its attention to my parents. My dad took the Brotherhood in hand and tried to stand up to it, but in seconds he was crushed beneath its claws. And then my mom came running for me. She was reaching her hand out for me, and calling my name. "Riza! Riza!" I reached out for her, and our fingers almost touched before the monster's talons raked across her back and she dropped to the ground. I knelt before her, crying my eyes out and trying hard not to scream as she still tried to take my hand, before her hand finally dropped and the life left her eyes._

"_No… _No… NO!"

I sat bolt upright, gasping for breath. I looked around me, seeing that the sun was still a long way from rising. We were still in the campsite in Macalania Woods where we'd laid down for the night after leaving Bevelle. I heard a grunt to my right, and looked to see Vidina lift his head and open his eyes. "Riza?" he grunted, scratching at his orange hair. "You alright, girl?"

I panted a moment more, putting a hand over my pounding heart as it began to calm down. "I'm fine. Just a bad dream."

Vidina laid his head back down, and seemed to go back to sleep almost right away. Everyone else was still sound asleep now. Farru and Nadaleen lay only a few inches apart from each other—I was definitely sure by this point that Farru had a thing for the quiet girl—while Paine slept several feet away from the rest of us.

The dream had been a near perfect recollection of a simple childhood memory, up to a certain point. I definitely remembered an instance when Farru and I were about eight or nine and Vidina was about ten where we tried to get into the Chamber of the Fayth in Besaid Temple, before Lulu came and stopped us. But then the dream had turned that memory into a nightmare by conjuring up the most horrible vision of how I could imagine an aeon looking. I'd been trying to keep a cool head since we left Mt. Gagazet, but I realized then the condition my head was in. Everything I knew and loved was potentially in danger, and I was terrified. I looked down at my father's sword that lay at my side, dreading the thought that it may have become mine permanently. I'd tried to tell Vidina last night not to worry, that we had to believe everything would be alright and that they were still alive, but I just couldn't stop wondering: what if it was already too late?

Still, I managed to sleep through the night, and woke up after everyone else was already up on their feet. The morning sunlight dancing off the crystals and plants and flowers that surrounded us, as well as off the jeweled gauntlets that Nadaleen wore on the hands she stretched to the air, was dazzling enough to make me forget my worries for a moment. Paine was standing in wait with her arms folded and her back turned to the rest of us, but looked back over her shoulder at me as I stretched and yawned. "You're finally awake," she said. "Then we should get going."

Paine told us that we were only moving through the outskirts of Macalania Woods, and it would take us less than half a day to get through them to the Thunder Plains. After that, it would most likely take us the remainder of the day to make it to the travel agency where we could rest for the night. Also, the route we were taking would have much fewer fiends than if we were going through the heart of the woods. That bit of good news did us all well. We passed out some of the food that we'd picked up in Bevelle the day before for our trip, and after a quick bite we set off.

I have to admit, if we weren't going under such dire circumstances, I'd have been tempted to hang around Macalania for a while. Almost the whole time we spent walking through the woods my head was turned up, looking at the trees and the crystals that were everywhere. Only once in fact did we encounter a fiend in those woods, although it was a big one: a chimera. It ended up taking a little bit from each of us: Farru ran it through with his lance, holding it in place while I sliced off its snake head, Vidina smacked it in the face with his blitzball, and Nadaleen gave it a few jolts of lightning before Paine finally struck it down. Other than that, our trip through the woods was quiet. By the time we reached the edge of it by midday, I have to say I was sad to leave it.

And not just because we were leaving it behind, but also because of where we found ourselves afterwards. I did not like the Thunder Plains at all. Just miles and miles of nothing but bare rock and jagged towers, with endless gray skies and endlessly booming thunder. It was like a place that was either eternally sad or eternally angry; I wasn't sure which. But as we traveled along, I began leaning more towards angry; there were plenty of fiends on the Thunder Plains. And they certainly seemed angry to see us.

After the mostly uneventful trip through Macalania, most of us had begun to let our guard down. Fortunately for Vidina, Paine had not, and so when he was looking up towards the sky and commenting on how ugly it looked—a sentiment I wholeheartedly agreed with—Paine was very quick to dash forward and cut down the bolt drake that was about to ram him in the gut. "Thanks," he said rather sheepishly as the creature dropped to the ground and the pyreflies floated away.

"Keep on your toes," she commanded.

It was like that for the rest of the day, just hiking across rock and fighting off occasional fiends. I ended up with a pretty nasty scratch from an angry reptile before I hacked it dead, and received a very unpleasant jolt from a gold elemental before Nadaleen doused it out with a water spell.

And just when the travel agency was coming into view and we were looking forward to a night's rest after our long and hard day, the day proved it was not over yet. Our path became blocked by, of all things, an ochu. It was the biggest fiend we'd run into since the flame dragon underneath Gagazet, and I was already tired and sore. Needless to say, I was in a foul mood once it showed up. "I think this thing is _trying_ to annoy me," I snarled.

"Riza, don't lose your head," Paine warned.

But it was a little late for that. I was already charging at the fiend, ready to slice it apart. My recollection of the next moment is hazy; I think I remember seeing the ochu's vines swinging at me, and I definitely remember a very painful sting between my neck and shoulder. I faintly recall getting one good hack at the giant plant with my sword, and then everything went black.

***

The next thing I remember is seeing a white ceiling, and hearing the dull hum of murmuring voices that slowly began coming into clarity. "…pect the same tomorrow. You should be ready. And when Riza comes around, tell her I said not to try any stupid stunts like that again."

"Um, Paine? I think she's already waking up."

The next moment I remember seeing Vidina's face looking down at me. "How you feeling, girl?" he asked.

With a grunt I attempted to sit up, but my stomach instantly rebelled and I lay flat back down. "Tell Paine she doesn't need to worry about me trying any more 'stupid stunts,'" I groaned.

"You should lie still for a while," Nadaleen said. "We gave you the antidote to the ochu's poison, but you need to give it a little while to run its course."

"I messed up, didn't I?"

"To be blunt, yes," Paine said, standing against a doorway with her arms folded. "We finished off that ochu, and Vidina carried you the rest of the way to the travel agency."

"You're welcome, by the way," Vidina said, sounding slightly annoyed but with a smile on his face.

"Rest up," Paine said, dropping her arms and turning into the doorway behind her. "We're only halfway through the Thunder Plains, so be ready for more of the same tomorrow before we get to Guadosalam." With that she was gone from the room.

"We should get our rest, too," Farru put in. "The rest of us might not be in as bad shape as Riza, but we're all exhausted I think."

"Yeah," Vidina said. He put a hand on my shoulder. "You'll be fine in the morning."

I nodded. "Thanks, Vidina."

Then they left, and I was alone with my thoughts. Rushing that ochu had hardly been the first stupid thing I'd ever done, but it definitely won points for sheer level of stupidity. It wasn't like me to be quite that impulsive, was it? Maybe I was just so worried about Mom and Dad that I lost my common sense? Yeah, that had to be it.

There was a knock at my open door. I lifted my head, and Nadaleen was standing in the doorway. "Riza?"

"Nadaleen?"

She hesitated, and then offered, "I know a little bit of light healing magic. If you like, I can help heal some of your wounds and help you to recover a little quicker."

"Well… you don't have to, I should be good to go in the morning."

"I know, I just thought you might like to feel a little better now. If you don't want my help…"

"No! No, I'd appreciate it, really."

She smiled a little. She came and sat down by my bedside, and put her hands over me. The jewels on her gauntlets began to glow, and I felt a comforting warmth inside me. Slowly I felt the pain from my wounds beginning to fade, and the sickness from the ochu's poison started to subside. After a moment the jewels stopped glowing and she pulled her hands back. "That's all I can do for now."

I found myself suddenly able to sit up without any difficulty. "Not bad," I said. "So you're not just strictly a black mage then?"

"I'm much better at black magic than white. The only reason I know any white magic at all is because my mother made me learn it. She didn't exactly approve when I started practicing black magic; she said we didn't live in that kind of age anymore. She told me my time would be better spent learning to use magic to heal pain, not cause it. She tried to make me study white magic instead, and I did try. But it felt counterintuitive; black magic came a lot more naturally to me. So I gave up on learning white magic before I got very far with it and went back to practicing what I did best."

"Your mother's name… Dona, right?"

"Yes."

"And she used to be a summoner, like my mom, right?"

"That's right. But she gave up her pilgrimage, while yours went on to do what no other summoner had ever done."

"I've heard about your mother before," I said. "My mom mentions her now and then. I want you to know she's never had anything bad to say about her. When she mentions the name 'Dona,' it's with nothing but respect."

"Thank you," Nadaleen smiled.

"So when you gave up trying to learn white magic, what did your mom do?"

"She was angry with me for a while, but then she decided she couldn't force me. I had to make my own choices. So she decided to back off and give me space. As it turned out, she gave me a little too much, and we barely spoke for two years."

"I'm sorry."

"It's alright. We've made our peace since then. In fact, I think you were the reason we made up, Riza."

I tilted my head. "Huh?"

"Do you remember the concert your mother had in Luca last year?"

I smiled wistfully at that memory. "How could I forget that? She let me come on stage to sing with her."

"My parents and I were there, and we saw you and Lady Yuna perform together. I saw how close you were to your mother, and I started to miss that with mine. So I confronted her about that. I talked to both my parents, in fact. Let's just say… the discussion was long. It turned out my mother missed me too, and we both wanted to make up for the time we lost."

"What did you do?"

"My parents took me on a pilgrimage of my own," she said. "Instead of going back to Kilika after the concert ended, we left Luca on foot and started out across the Mi'ihen Highroad. We visited the temples in Djose, in Macalania, in Bevelle, and went all the way to Zanarkand."

"Wow," I said. "Kind of a dangerous family bonding trip, don't you think?"

"Well it worked," Nadaleen shrugged. "Ever since, my mother and I have never been closer. More like yours, I imagine."

"Actually, I kind of wish my mom was a bit more like yours, now. Your parents went out and let you face danger with them. Mine barely let me go down to the beach. And my mom is always nagging me about staying out of the Cloister of Trials in the temple, as if she expects something to come out of there… which I guess now is a fair expectation…"

I stopped suddenly, hearing the way I was talking about my parents in present tense, as if nothing was wrong, as if they weren't missing, possibly dead. "Riza?"

A dam burst, and tears began flooding from my eyes. My face fell into my hands and I proceeded to sob my heart out. Nadaleen took me in her arms, giving me her shoulder to cry on. For a long time she just held me there while I sobbed against her.

"I can't pretend to know what you're going through," Nadaleen said. Then she sighed, "I almost feel guilty knowing my family is safe and sound in Kilika. But I want to know that Lady Yuna and everyone else are safe as much as you do. I promise, we'll find them."

Those were the same words I'd said to Vidina. But it turned out that hearing those same words spoken back to me was exactly what I needed right then. I lifted my head and looked at her through blurry eyes, and sniffling I nodded my thanks. Then she laid me back down and pulled the sheet over me. "Get some rest," she said gently before getting up to leave.


	5. A Bump in the Road

Guadosalam was an okay place to visit, but I couldn't imagine anyone wanting to live there. The eerie look of the soft light on the gray and green cavern walls made the place certainly nice to look at. But still, a cave is a cave, and Guadosalam was, when you got down to the grit of it, a cave. The Guado themselves seemed friendly enough, but a little creepy. And I wasn't very fond of the food there either.

Still, after finally getting past the Thunder Plains, any place was paradise.

"How close are we to Djose?" Vidina asked, gulping down a mouthful of the mediocre food.

"If we don't stay too long, we should be able to make it there before tomorrow," Paine said. "But we definitely won't get there before nightfall. It may even be dark by the time we get across the Moonflow."

"Wow," I said, smiling. "I always wanted to see the Moonflow at night!" I had in fact seen the Moonflow before, but it had been daytime.

"It is a breathtaking sight," Paine nodded.

Farru began looking a little distant, not touching his food. "Farru? Something on your mind?" I asked.

"I was just thinking," he said, and then paused.

"Yes?"

"Well, the gateway to the Farplane is here, right?"

"That's right," Paine said.

"Perhaps if we went there we could talk to Kimahri, ask him what happened to him in Bevelle."

Paine sighed. "If only it were that simple. It's one thing to see and speak to those on the Farplane, but hearing them talk back is something else entirely."

"Well, what if…" Vidina began.

"What if what?" I asked.

"What if we went there anyway, maybe we could find out if our families our alive or dead?"

I stopped suddenly, and set down the bite of food I was about to fork into my mouth.

"I'm afraid that wouldn't tell us much either," Paine said. "If we visit the Farplane and they're not there, that could mean they're alive, or it could mean they're dead and no one has sent them."

All of us went quiet for a moment after that. "I really don't want to think that way," I said.

"Which is why we're better off just continuing on to Djose and not stopping to ask questions we can't answer yet," said Paine.

There was a collective wave of unease around the table. There was no question that all of us would've liked some answers to the questions that had been plaguing us since we set out from Mt. Gagazet, but we had to face the reality that Paine was right. There wasn't any sense in wasting time second guessing ourselves. We had to keep moving.

After we finished eating and purchased a few more medical potions for the road, we continued on. Stepping out of the caverns of Guadosalam and onto the picturesque road to the Moonflow was a nice change, and the few fiends we saw there didn't give us much trouble. We did have to fight a few of them off, but we managed to do so without any injuries, which was a comforting break from the rough trip we had on the Thunder Plains.

It wasn't quite night yet when we got to the north bank of the Moonflow, but it was close enough that the pyreflies floating above the water's surface were still a fairly breathtaking sight. I was tempted to wait around for a while for it to really get dark, to see the Moonflow really light up; in fact I actually suggested outright that we do that. Paine insisted that we shouldn't waste any time and should get on the shoopuff right away. "Besides," she said, "think of how impressive it will be to watch the Moonflow as it gets darker while we cross it." I didn't need any more convincing after that.

Can I just say that I love Hypellos? They're so cute and friendly, and I just love the way they talk. The one who stood on the wharf seemed to get pretty excited when he saw me. We stepped onto the dock, and… well, Hypellos seem to have naturally wide eyes and a built in smile, but if it's possible, both of his suddenly got wider. The blue amphibian waddled up to us and said, "Yoo are Mish Reezha, yesh? Yoo are daughter of Yoona?"

"Yes I am," I smiled. I don't usually get that sunny about strangers recognizing me, but this Hypello was just that adorable.

"We are sho pleashed to meet yoo! Yoo want to ride ze shoopuff?"

I looked up at the huge gray animal that stood next to us. I hadn't seen a shoopuff since I was I child, and seeing it summoned up a pleasant sense of nostalgia that kept me from answering right away. Paine ended up answering for me while my eyes were still pointed upward. "Yes, we do," she said.

"All aboards!"

We piled onto the crane that loaded us into the little cab on the shoopuff's back. The Hypello took the driver's seat and grabbed the reins, and I felt my seat shift as the massive animal stepped into blue-green waters of the Moonflow.

"Can you believe this is still how we get across the Moonflow?" Farru said. "You'd think they'd have some kind of machina to carry us across more quickly by now."

"But why would you want to get across more quickly?" Nadaleen asked. "Isn't it so much nicer to take your time and enjoy this?"

"She's right," I added. "Come on, Farru, don't you think this place is beautiful?"

"Sure, it's nice here," Farru shrugged. "But I just kind of think, so much has changed and been added to other places in Spira since the Eternal Calm began, you'd think they'd add some things to this place."

"Like what?" I said.

"Maybe they could find some way to raise that," Vidina offered, pointing over the side, "and keep it from sinking again."

All of us looked over the rail at the sunken city beneath the water's surface. It was definitely an impressive spectacle, and more so with the pyreflies dancing above it and glowing brighter as night steadily came on, but I couldn't help but ask: "Do you really want the Moonflow to become cluttered like that?"

"Maybe you shouldn't look at it that way, ya?" Vidina said. "Think of it like this: instead of just being a place that people pass through to get from one side of it to the other, what if people actually lived here? Imagine living on top of this, ya?"

We fell silent as we chewed on this idea, staring down at the towers and roads of the submerged city, imagining them as being home. "That would be nice…" Nadaleen mused.

"Maybe we should suggest that to the Al Bhed," Farru offered. "Maybe they really will raise the city, and maybe then we could go live there."

The way he was glancing in Nadaleen's direction when he said that last part was not lost on me. "Why don't you hold your chocobos, Farru."

"I'm only suggesting the possibility," he said.

"And it is a lovely possibility," Nadaleen offered. "If the Al Bhed ever do decide to raise the city, I think I'd love to live in it someday."

"I think you need to hold your chocobos too," Paine said. "That city's still underwater, and the current plan is to keep it that way."

"Well, isn't that the problem?" Farru said.

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Think about how Spira used to be, in the time before Sin, when we had huge cities like Zanarkand. Then Sin came, and those cities were destroyed, and no one thought to rebuild them because Yevon told them it would be wrong. Now that Sin is gone, Spira finally has room to grow. But, look at how little it's grown since Sin was destroyed! It's as if we're afraid Sin will come back if we try to make Spira more than it is."

"Aren't the Al Bhed building that floating city out on the sea… what do they call it?" Vidina said.

"Steel Island," Paine answered. "They expect it to be finished in another year, but they already have a few hundred Al Bhed living there."

"I'd call that a step forward, ya?" Vidina said.

"It's a step, yes," Farru nodded. "But there's so much more we could be doing. Maybe someday we could even…" He paused, long enough for all of us to see him feeling the sheer boldness of what he was about to say. "What if we rebuilt Zanarkand?"

Farru had never been shy, but I would defy anyone to keep their composure with the way we all stared at him. "You serious?" Vidina gaped.

"Don't tell me you all haven't thought it at some point, I'm just saying it out loud."

"It's a radical idea, to say the least," Paine said, "and definitely one that would get a lot of opposition."

"I know people think of Zanarkand as being sacred," Farru said. "And I don't want to sound disrespectful of everything that's happened there, but the fact is it isn't doing anyone any good as ruins anymore. If you ask me, I think the best way to honor the memory of what Zanarkand used to be is to restore it to its old glory."

"I dunno," Vidina said warily. "A lot of people I could name aren't gonna go for that. Including my parents…"

The discussion pretty much stopped there. We'd let ourselves forget for a while the reason we were on this journey in the first place, which was something we needed to do from time to time in order to stay focused and keep our sanity. That went for me and Vidina especially. But as soon as he uttered the "P" word we were suddenly reminded. Vidina looked very sorry he'd said anything. The only thing to do now was to turn our attention outward and marvel at the light show of the pyreflies as the darkening sky let them shine that much brighter.

The next words any of us said were Paine saying, "We're docking," seconds before the shoopuff began stepping up onto the south bank. After that we were quiet as the crane brought the lift up to carry us from the cab on the shoopuff's back to the ground. As we walked away, the Hypello saw us off with "Thank yoo. Hope to shee yoo shoon."

Grinning in spite of myself, I couldn't help turning back to him and saying "Yesh, that would be nishe."

I turned my head back around to see Vidina grinning at me. "Riza, you are naughty, girl."

"You know it!"

That moment proved to be exactly what we needed. We started carrying ourselves a little lighter after that.

For a while, at least. Then something brought us to a crashing halt.

We'd been walking along the south road for more than an hour, starting to relax in the knowledge that we were almost to Djose, and by now it was full on dark. All at once we heard a voice from off to the side call, "You there!" We stopped suddenly and looked in the direction the voice came from. At first I saw nothing; after all, it was dark. But I got a better look at the figure who'd spoken as he stepped forward through the grass. It was a middle-aged man dressed in what looked like a New Yevon robe, with a small jewel placed on his forehead. It was a little too dark for me to make out exactly what color that jewel was. The man looked at us with a blank stare. "You must go no further," he said.

"Who are you?" Paine asked.

"Who I am does not matter. The path you walk will lead only to your doom."

"Would you quit with the melodrama and tell us what in Spira you're talking about?" I demanded.

"You seek to learn the secrets buried under Bevelle," he said. "You seek to learn the truth surrounding the death of Kimahri Ronso. This I cannot allow. You must turn back and go home."

"Not happening, pal!" Vidina snapped. "We got family missing out there! We ain't going home until we find them!"

The man blinked slowly. "As you wish. I gave you the option to live. Now face Yojimbo."

With that, the man threw his arms up, and rush of air seemed to spiral up around him carrying the dirt and grass and debris from the ground at his feet… and the man was gone. And out of nowhere, some pink flower petals seemed to float by, and we heard another set of footsteps approaching. Slow, ponderous footsteps, that heralded the appearance of some creature in a long flowing robe and wide hat with a sword at its hip, and a strange-looking dog yapping by its heels.

"What is that?" Farru gasped.

"It's an aeon!" Paine shouted, bringing her sword to bear.

Almost as soon as the word had left her mouth, the aeon made a subtle hand signal and his dog came charging at us. It went straight for Farru, who was quick to bring his lance up to block it. In the next moment Farru was on his back, struggling to hold up the length of his staff which was now in the dog's snapping jaws, the only thing between him and its teeth.

Yojimbo itself was far from idle while this was happening. It reached a hand into its robe and produced a small metal object. I couldn't tell what it was until it opened, sprouting several nasty-looking blades—and Yojimbo's attention was focused on me. I was sure anyone slower than me would have been shredded when it threw that thing right at me, but I back-flipped away just in time to only accidentally hit the back of it with my foot.

Nadaleen meanwhile was rushing to Farru's aid, whipping her hand out and illuminating the jewels on her gauntlets, and a fire spell flared up in the face of the dog trying to maul Farru to pieces and sending it reeling. But the dog instantly retaliated, and came circling around straight for her. Farru was immediately on his feet, and swept the sharp end of his lance around and knocking the dog rolling away while slicing into it at same time seconds before it could leap onto Nadaleen.

Vidina reared back and chucked his blitzball right at Yojimbo's face. The aeon was struck dead on, and dropped to one knee—but only for a moment. It came right back up to its feet, its hand going to its hip. "I think you made it mad," I told him.

And as if in confirmation of that statement, Yojimbo's hand was on the hilt of its sword, its eye focused on Vidina. I had time to see its sword flash from the scabbard, and the white streak of the shockwave come ripping through the dirt at him—and suddenly Paine was in front of him, down on one knee, holding her sword up to block. The force of the slash was still enough to send her reeling backwards, knocking Vidina over with her. At least it looked like her sword had absorbed most of the impact.

I charged and leapt at Yojimbo, bringing the Brotherhood down to slice into it. Yojimbo reeled from the attack, and I was ready to hack at it again, when I heard Vidina call, "Riza, look out!" I turned my head to the side in time to see the aeon's dog pouncing on me. I was knocked sprawling onto my back, and grunted at the feel of the dog's teeth getting into my shoulder. Fortunately I only had to endure this pain for a second, as something struck the dog and sent it rolling away. I looked up and saw Vidina catching his rebounding blitzball.

There was a crack and a flash as Nadaleen hit Yojimbo with a lightning spell, and again the aeon moved to retaliate, reaching into its robe and producing another of those small metal bladed things. Nadaleen had nothing approaching the agility to dodge that thing, and could have been sliced apart by that thing if Paine hadn't swung her sword up to deflect it. But already, Yojimbo was preparing its next move, about to draw its sword again.

Farru charged forward, bringing his lance around in a swift and deadly arc to slash Yojimbo across the gut. The attack staggered the aeon enough to interrupt its move, but only for a second. As soon as it collected itself, Yojimbo's hand was going for its sword again, and Farru was right in its path. "Farru!" I shouted, and jumped on him in time to tumble us both away from the blade's arc—

—and leaving room for the sword to send another shockwave tearing through the dirt, right in Nadaleen's direction. The girl took the wave head on, and went rolling to the ground with a hard grunt.

"Nadaleen!" Farru gasped.

Before any of us had a chance to run to her, a sudden rush of hot air came as if from nowhere, blowing us away from Yojimbo. After I rolled a few times and picked my head up out of the dirt, I could see a strange red and black field forming on the ground in front of the aeon, and then something was rising up out of it. A moment later I realized what it was. Yojimbo was conjuring a sword, one much bigger than the one at its hip. One big enough to kill all five of us in a single stroke. And it drew that sword from its scabbard, and now it was charging us, about to take all of us out. I tensed up, preparing for my head to go flying—

_TATATATATATATATATATATAT_

Yojimbo was being practically shredded by the rain of bullets that were hitting it. The aeon twisted and writhed under the relentless gunfire, until it dropped to its knees. The bullets finally stopped when Yojimbo started to fade, the fayth that made it dispersing. The rogue aeon was beaten.

Each of us raised our heads and looked for the source the bullets that saved us. Standing a short distance away was a young Al Bhed man with spiky blond hair and a light green vest. A strange machina was mounted on his arm, mounted with a rotating disc on the end that was slowing down from spinning. Three smoking holes in triangular formation were on the face of that disc, where the bullets had been shot in rapid fire from. The clever machine gun sort of folded up when the spinning wheel stopped, and he raised the goggles on his eyes onto his forehead. "You're all plenty happy to see me, I hope," he said.

"Camall!" Nadaleen beamed, and then winced from the pain of her wounds. Farru hurried to her side, producing one of the restorative potions we'd picked up in Guadosalam.

"You're Camall?" Paine asked.

"Yes I am, and you're in need of some R & R after that, am I right?"

"You're very right," I grunted, climbing to my feet.

"What are you doing here?" Nadaleen asked, pulling her mouth away from the bottle of potion that Farru was feeding her. "I thought you'd be back in Djose already."

"I was," Camall nodded. "But then this weird guy showed up and warned me that someone would be coming to look for my help, and that I must 'turn them away' before he just disappeared. I figured he was probably talking about you, Nadaleen, so I took a hover out to look for you. I didn't know you'd be bringing company." Then he looked straight at me. "And I definitely didn't know you'd be bringing a celebrity."

All of us made the connection instantly: the man who appeared to Camall was most likely the same one who appeared to us before Yojimbo showed up.

"So I guess the obvious question is, what's going down?" Camall said, looking around inquisitively.

"A lot's happened," Paine said. "We need to talk."


	6. The Point of the Compass

I woke up the next morning more comfortably than I had since leaving Besaid. For a second I didn't know where I was before I remembered being brought on Camall's hover to Djose Temple last night. There hadn't been time for much discussion; Paine had explained to Camall what had happened on Gagazet, and Camall had replied with "Wow, this is heavy," but after that we were ready to just pass out. Not only was it late, but we were worn and exhausted from fighting Yojimbo. My memory of actually being given a room to sleep in was hazy at best; I was that tired.

Now I turned and put my feet on the floor and stretched, feeling pleasantly rested. I peeled back the bandage on my shoulder where Yojimbo's dog had bitten me. I was fairly certain I remembered being given some potions last night, and the wound was healing nicely. I got up and went off to the washroom, happy for the opportunity to finally get rid of the grime of several days of travel, and then returned to the bedroom and sat down in front of the mirror to get my hair braided.

As I had several times since this journey began, I'd been dreaming about my parents. I thought about them while I twisted my locks. I saw what they'd given me in the face looking back at me in the mirror. I saw my mother's mismatched eyes and my father's blond hair. I thought about the day before they disappeared. I remembered how distracted Mom seemed when she brought me into our family hut to give me that lecture about not running off alone, and how I knew the news about what happened to Kimahri was not making discipline easier for her. Dad spent most of the evening sitting on a ledge, staring out over the sea, not talking to anyone.

I couldn't help thinking it was easier for them, knowing beyond a doubt that Kimahri was dead, than it was for me not knowing whether they were alive.

Once my braid was finished, I stepped out into the hall and into the main area of the temple, where several Al Bhed were working and chatting. I looked up to admire the electrical currents surging through the ceiling; I had to admit, Djose was a cool place to look at. I exited the temple and found Paine and Vidina waiting outside amongst the tents and small machina structures that the Al Bhed had set up around the place. "Hey, look who's awake!" Vidina beamed.

"Are Farru and Nadaleen not up yet?" I asked.

"Nadaleen isn't," Paine said. "She got hit pretty hard last night. Farru just went to check on her."

"Of course he did," I chuckled.

"Well, our honored guest finally woke up," someone else said. It took me a moment to recognize the voice, since I hadn't heard it in a few years, but there was no mistaking that eye patch and that raised blonde hair.

"Hello Gippal," I said.

"Hello Riza," he smiled. "It's nice to see you again."

"You too. Is little Truno around?"

"He's off playing with the other kids. If you wanted to visit him, I'm sure he'd be happy to see you."

"Actually, it looks like he's already happy to see you," Vidina grinned.

I had only a second to wonder what he meant by that before I felt a weight fall onto my back, staggering me forward, and a pair of little arms were around my neck. I turned my head to look into the giggling face of my eight-year-old cousin. "Hi, Truno."

"Rammu, Riza!" the boy giggled.

"I'm afraid playtime's going to have to wait," Paine said. "We have things to talk about."

Gippal nodded, and turned to his young son on my back. "Truno, fro tuh'd oui ku bmyo fedr ouin vneahtc cusa suna. Oui lyh bmyo fedr Riza mydan."

Truno dropped down off my back, his smile fading. "femm cra niymmo?"

"Uv luinca. Ku uh, vydran ryc cusa drehkc du dymg ypuid."

The boy hung his head and nodded, and then looked up at me and said, "You play with me later?"

Truno was still getting used to learning Spiran, so I just smiled and nodded instead of responding verbally. That was enough for him to run off and rejoin his friends.

"Have you heard about what happened?" I asked Gippal.

He looked at me gravely and nodded. "Camall filled me in. I didn't tell Truno. I don't think he wants to know his mommy is missing."

By "his mommy," Gippal was referring to Rikku. The two of them had enjoyed a brief romance several years ago, long enough at least for little Truno to be born. Sadly, the relationship didn't last, and they went their separate ways. Gippal had remained in Djose while Rikku went to live in New Home on Bikanel Island, and they periodically traded custody of their son.

Camall approached as Truno went, and paused to tousle the boy's hair as he passed. "Morning, Riza! How's the bite?"

"Getting better."

"Good thing. It'd be a shame if the first time a lot of the guys here got to meet the famous daughter of Yuna she was treating rabies."

"I wouldn't like that either," I grinned.

The doors to the temple opened behind us, and I recognized Farru's dark red tunic and Nadaleen's purple coat as they emerged. "Good, everyone's here," Paine said as they approached.

"Yeah, it means we can start figuring things out," Gippal said. "Apparently you guys ran into some trouble on the way here."

"That's putting it mildly," Nadaleen said, holding her neck and rotating her shoulder with a grunt.

"How are you feeling, by the way?" I asked her.

"Better."

"So this guy in a New Yevon getup showed up and told you to give up your search, and when you said no he sicced an aeon on you?" Gippal said.

"That's about the gist of it," I replied.

"And we're guessing it's probably the same guy who told me not to help these folks," Camall added.

"So what do we do now?" Farru asked.

"We need to start figuring out what's happening here," said Paine.

"I think it's pretty obvious what's happening," Vidina spat. "That Roumsey creep doesn't want us finding out what he's up to, so he sent a goon to get rid of us."

"We don't know that, Vidina," Nadaleen said.

"But it is a definite possibility," Paine offered. "Roumsey is certainly shady enough to raise an eyebrow."

"Yeah, I haven't heard a lot of good things about him," Gippal nodded. "A lot of New Yevon followers left the group after he took over."

"Speaking of which, have you heard from Baralai lately?" Paine asked.

"He's been kind of aloof since he stepped down from his position," Gippal said. "Last I heard he was still in Bevelle, but that was over a year ago."

"The real reason we came here was to talk to you, Camall," Nadaleen put in.

"Me?"

"You left Bevelle after I did. We wondered if there was anything else you could tell us."

Camall thought about it for a second. "I don't think so… Roumsey was just as cryptic with me as he was with you." Then he got another look in his eyes. "Wait…"

"What is it?" I asked.

"Something one of the New Yevonites said. I heard he tried looking into the Cloister of Trials, and some of the guards dragged him away, and Roumsey got all fumy like he was gonna kill him."

"I think it's a fair bet that Roumsey is hiding something," Farru said. "All the evidence is pointing back to Bevelle."

"Are we talking about going back there?" Nadaleen said, clearly not relishing the prospect.

"I think we should stop talking about it and start doing!" Vidina snarled. "I say let's get our fingers on Roumsey's throat and make him cough up where he's keeping my mom and dad and everyone!"

"Slow down, Vidina," Paine said. "We still don't know anything for sure, and I don't think we should go flying off half-cocked."

"But we're not going to find anything out by standing around asking questions," I pointed out. "If the answers really are in Bevelle, shouldn't we be there looking for them?"

"If the answers really are in Bevelle," Paine replied, "It's clear that Roumsey doesn't want us finding them, and he commands the full forces of New Yevon. What do you suggest we do? Knock?"

"What if we got other people on our side?" Farru suggested. "Consider the situation: High Summoner Yuna, the most famous living person in Spira, is missing, and it looks like New Yevon is involved. I think the rest of Spira will want to know that, don't you?"

"He's got a point," Nadaleen said. "If we tell the people of Spira what's going on, Roumsey's going to have a harder time keeping his secrets."

"Then we should go to where the people are and get the word out," Paine said.

"Luca?" I said.

"Sounds good to me," Gippal said. "You guys should go there and tell the public what's happened, and I betcha you'll draw a whole lot of support. It'll be even better if you can get the Youth League on your side; they've been itching for a reason to take another shot at New Yevon."

"Didn't those guys make their peace a long time ago?" Vidina said.

"That was before Baralai stepped down and Roumsey took over," Gippal clarified. "Big surprise, the Youth League doesn't like him."

"Go figure," I smirked, rolling my eyes.

"Does someone have an airship around here we could take?" Farru asked.

"At the moment, 'fraid not," Camall said. "The one I took to Bevelle and back left for Bikanel three days ago."

"I could put in a call to see if I could get it back here, but I can't promise anything," said Gippal.

"Without an airship it would only take a couple of days to reach Luca on foot from here," Paine offered.

"Gippal, why don't you go see if you can get these guys a lift to Luca, just in case," Camall said.

"Alright, I'm on it."

As Gippal turned away from us, I shrugged, "I guess that gives me some time to make good on a promise to my cousin."

***

I have to admit, little Truno was getting pretty good at hitting the blitzball around. The only trouble I tend to have interacting with the kid is verbally communicating with him, since he only knows a little Spiran and I only know a little Al Bhed. But we find ways to get around that, on that day enough for me to challenge him to try to get the ball past me. I was impressed to find the little guy actually succeeded a few times. I tried to tell him I thought he was going to be a star blitzball player someday, but I don't think he quite understood me.

I caught the ball that was flying at me and looked up when Vidina approached me. "Riza!" he called. "Gippal says the airship's tied up on Steel Island. Paine thinks we should head to Luca on foot and the airship is gonna meet us there."

I sighed. "Well, I guess it wouldn't hurt to get my feet sore a few more times."

"Hey, I ain't happy about it either, girl," he said. "But look at it this way: our parents went through a lot worse."

I raised my eyebrows, cocked my head and nodded. He was right, of course. Growing up during the Eternal Calm, I guess I was just spoiled.

"It's just a couple more days," Vidina said. "We'll tough it out."

***

We rested there a little longer, just to be fed and properly supplied for the road, and a little after midday we were ready to set off. Paine, not surprisingly, was the first one waiting at the bridge, patiently standing with her arms folded when Vidina and I showed up. She told us that Farru had been there a moment ago, but—

"Let me guess," I said, "he went to check on Nadaleen?"

"She seems to be taking her time," Paine said.

But Farru showed up a minute later, claiming that Nadaleen should be right behind him, and it didn't take much longer for the black-haired, purple-coated girl to arrive. "Alright, let's head out," Paine said, starting to turn towards the path.

"Hold up!" a voice called from behind us. We turned to find Camall coming to join us. "I thought I'd accompany you guys on this little jaunt."

"Really?" I grinned.

"Are you sure about this?" Paine said, raising an eyebrow.

"Hey, I'm for it, ya?" Vidina said.

"He's already proven handy in a pinch," Farru said.

Nadaleen only smiled.

"Way I see it," Camall shrugged, "I'm basically involved in this already. No reason I should sit on the sidelines now."

"He's a team player!" I beamed. "Speaking as a blitzer, I like him!"

"Yeah, well who can blame you," Camall grinned.

"Very modest," Paine rolled her eyes with a smirk.

"I think I'll feel a little safer with him along," Nadaleen put in. "Especially if we end up having to go back to Bevelle."

"Alright then," Paine said. "Follow us if you're coming."

With that we started to move off. But just as we were heading across the Djose bridge, Camall came up beside me and softly said, "Hey, Riza."

I started hanging back from the group. "What's up?"

"I've been meaning to talk to you. I just wanted to say, I'm impressed."

"For what?"

"I'm just saying, if I were in your shoes, I don't know if I'd be holding up quite so well. Everybody in Spira knows you for who your mother is, and now that mother is missing. Since you got here I've been trying to imagine what that must be like."

I let my head droop a little. "It hasn't been easy, I'll tell you that."

"Oh, I'm sure. But I'm just wondering… everybody knows you mostly as Yuna's daughter, but is that how you think of yourself?"

"What?"

"When we get to Luca, everybody's going to look at you and cheer and listen to what you have to say because you're Yuna's daughter. But that's all that most of them know. They won't see Riza when they look at you; they'll just see Yuna's daughter. Does that ever bother you?"

I paused, giving Camall a good, hard look. No one had ever asked me these things before. "Sometimes, yeah, it definitely bothers me. I've sometimes run away from the village in Besaid just to put some distance between me and her so I can be more than just Yuna's daughter."

"So you're telling me that is how you see yourself?"

"A little. It's the way everyone treats me, so it's kind of hard not to think of myself that way. But the truth is, when I think about myself, I usually think I'm more my father's daughter than my mother's."

"And he's missing too," Camall pointed out. "You know, stop me if I seem insensitive, but I'm just thinking that assuming we do find them and they're all okay, do you think maybe this journey will have been just what you needed to learn to identify yourself more as you and not so much as your parents' kid?"

I paused again. "Camall, you're something else!" was all I said.

"I'm a thinker. It's what I do."

"Hey, Riza!" Vidina called, alerting me to the fact that the rest of them were way ahead of us. "You coming?"

"Wait up!"


	7. Panic in Luca

"My mother, High Summoner Yuna, is missing."

I'd lost track of the number of times I'd heard my own words repeated on Luca's big sphere screens. All of Luca was in an uproar.

Two days had passed since we set out from Djose, and the trip to Luca had been fairly uneventful. We did have to fight off fiends now and then, but none of them gave us too much trouble. Camall quickly proved himself quite effective in battle, having an impressive array of gadgets to fight with. In addition to the machine gun we'd already seen him use, he could also use that thing as a spinning blade wheel, and on his other arm he was equipped with an extendable grappling claw that could surge electricity into whatever it grabbed. I would not be the least bit surprised to find he had lots more in his arsenal that he was keeping on reserve.

By nightfall the day we left Djose, we had made it to the gates of the Mi'ihen Highroad. We rested in the tents there, and in the morning we did something that shaved several hours off our trip. It was also something I'd wanted to do ever since the last time I did it when I was eleven.

We rented chocobos.

I loved riding on those big birds! At least for a while; my butt started getting a little sore after a few hours, but I still enjoyed the ride. And with them speeding things along, it wasn't even nighttime yet by the time we reached the entrance to Luca. That gave us time to let the administrators of the stadium know that I needed to address Spira tomorrow.

So the moment came when I stood in that booth in front of the microphone, with my friends behind me and a stadium full of thousands of people from all over Spira who had gathered to hear what the daughter of Yuna had to say. To say I was unnerved would have been a gross understatement, especially considering the news I was about to tell them. And so I took a breath, bit my lip, and stepped forward, and with that one simple sentence elicited a gasp of shock out of the whole crowd.

I went on to explain the details of what happened on Mt. Gagazet, how we suspected it was somehow connected to the mysterious attacks by rogue aeons, and that Praetor Roumsey seemed to be involved somehow. Since I gave my speech my words had been echoing all around us for hours, and every stranger who saw me had been rushing up to bombard me with questions. Ultimately I had to shut myself away in private quarters after getting absolutely sick of everyone hounding me.

_These people are more panicked about my mother's disappearance than I am, and she's my mom,_ I thought, crashed out on the bed in my quarters. But to be fair, I'd been dealing with it for days while the news was still new to all of them. I couldn't help wondering if maybe we'd gotten the public a little _too_ riled up.

When someone knocked at the door, my first response was a very harsh, "Go away!"

"Riza, it's Vidina. I just wanna talk."

Okay, him I could open the door for. I got up and went to the door—and then paused with my hand on the handle. "Are you alone?"

"Yeah, I'm alone."

I opened the door.

"How's it going out there?" I muttered, going to sit on the bed again.

"Absolute chaos," he said. "Maybe this wasn't a good idea."

"I still think we were right," I sighed. "We'll have a better chance of finding our parents if we aren't alone in it. I just wish…"

Vidina sat down next to me. "What?"

I groaned and ran my fingers through my hair. My head was a mess. "I've been thinking about something Camall said to me when we left Djose."

"What did he say?"

"None of the people out there see me as Riza. I'm just Yuna's daughter to them."

"You're Riza to us."

I smiled, and laid my head against his shoulder. Vidina might never have been as brave or adventurous as I was; that had never prevented me from feeling safer with him. "Everywhere we go, people treat me like royalty because of who my mom is. They give me everything I ask for except a moment's peace. I feel like all my life I've been getting something I don't deserve. I mean, I wouldn't trade my mom for anything… but she's my whole identity."

"That ain't true, girl."

I lifted my head and looked at him.

"You know what I see when I look at you?" he said. "I see Riza, future star of the Besaid Aurochs. I see my best friend that I grew up with, who I've shared everything with for as long as I can remember. Those people out there, Riza, they're strangers. They might know who you are, but they don't know you. Not like me and Farru do. You didn't need your mom to make an identity with us. And you don't need those people."

I smiled again. Sometimes Vidina really did know just what to say. I leaned forward to embrace him, and he put an arm around my shoulders.

"And let me tell you one other thing I think," he said then. "If it turned out that saving our parents was impossible, you'd be the one among us who'd still find a way to do it."

"Thanks, Vidina."

There was a knock at the door, followed by Farru's voice saying, "Hey, you in there?"

"Farru?" I stood up from the bed.

The door opened and he stood in the doorway, an urgent look on his face. "You guys'll want to get out here."

"What's going on?" Vidina asked.

"The Youth League's arrived. Meyvyn Nooj is preparing to address the crowd, and he wants us there."

"Oh, great, this is just what I need," I muttered.

"Actually, maybe it is," Nadaleen said suddenly, stepping into view behind Farru. "You remember why we decided to do this, right?"

"Right," I moaned. "Let's get it over with."

***

I'd never met Nooj before, and while I'd seen his image on sphere screens before, seeing him in person was a bit different. I found it hard to imagine this fragile-looking man as the leader of the Youth League. He was talking to Paine when I entered the booth, but as I'd grown so accustomed to with others, his attention turned immediately to me when I appeared. "So this is her, then?" he asked Paine.

"Yes. This is Riza." I found I was relieved that Paine didn't introduce me as "Yuna's daughter."

The half-crippled man hobbled toward me on his cane. "This wasn't news that I ever thought I would hear," he said. "From what I heard, not only has your mother disappeared, but several others with her, right?"

"Yeah," I nodded. "My father, Wakka, Lulu, Rikku, all of the Ronso, and everyone else who was there to honor Kimahri."

"If New Yevon is involved in this, then I may have trouble holding some of my Youth League members back," Nooj thought out loud.

"I think we're pretty okay with that," Vidina said.

"Vidina!" Paine chided.

Nooj turned around and limped to the microphone. "Everyone," he spoke to the anxious crowd that surrounded us. "I know we're all distressed about this. We're all hoping to learn that Lady Yuna and everyone else are safe. The important thing to remember is for everyone to stay calm, because we won't learn anything by being rash and rushing into things. If it's true that New Yevon is responsible for Lady Yuna's disappearance, then the Youth League will find out, and they'll be made to answer for it. But we mustn't panic, and we mustn't take action against anyone until we have proof."

It was all he could do to keep the crowd from popping. They looked ready to start screaming for blood—and moments later, a few of them actually did start screaming. But they sounded like screams of panic. And looking at them, I began to notice that the ones that were screaming were the ones looking up, and as more of them looked up, the sense of panic began to spread. My eyes turned upward. This was just not my day.

Four ravenous garudas were swooping down on the crowd. There wasn't any time to stop and wonder about where they came from; the bystanders were about to become lunch. And even as the crowd started to panic and run, more fiends began suddenly appearing in the stands. Dual horns and Mi'ihen fangs and raldos were materializing out of nowhere and attacking whoever got too close. There were those among the crowd who had combat experience, and they stood their ground, fighting off the sudden attack. But the people were going to need help, and they were going to need it now.

"Move!" Paine commanded as we took our weapons in hand. But I was already charging, vaulting over the edge of the booth with the Brotherhood in hand and dropping down to the benches several feet below me. As soon as my feet hit the pavement and my knees bent to absorb the drop, I heard Vidina's voice call, "Riza, look out!"

I looked up in time to see one of the garudas diving at me with its mouth open, ready to chomp my head off. Vidina leapt up out of the booth and chucked his blitzball, hitting the flying fiend straight between the eyes. The garuda reeled from the attack, shutting its eyes and shaking its head as Vidina caught his ball and landed on his feet. It tried to attack again, diving and chomping at me, but it seemed like it was attacking blind, and I dodged it with a simple sidestep—just before Farru dropped straight down on it from above, impaling it with his lance.

The raldo that tried to attack me from behind right then gave itself away with its distinctive grunt. It gave me the warning I needed to backflip over it as it came at me, landing behind it as the fiend met the edge of Camall's spinning blades. I turned around, and leapt to cut down the Mi'ihen fang that was about to attack a little boy whose mother was frantically trying to pull him away. I let loose with a "Hah!" and heard the satisfying yelp as I felt the blade slice into the fiend and it rolled away and started to fade.

Off to my left, I saw the flash of Paine's sword as she cut down a dual horn. To my right, Vidina's blitzball knocked a floating eye out of the air, and Nadaleen struck another one down with a thunder spell. Another dual horn was charging at another set of bystanders before Camall's claw extended and grabbed it, holding it back long enough for Farru to finish it off. We continued cutting a path through the onslaught while the crowds ran for the exits.

I don't know how long we kept this up for, but after a while the horde of fiends looked like it was starting to thin. But just as we were starting to relax a little, only a few fiends left in the stands, we received a violent announcement that we were far from finished. I felt the ground suddenly beginning to tremble, and at the center of the stadium, a field of black and red began to spread. And something was coming up out of that. Something big.

The first thing I saw was a gigantic, monstrous face screeching to the sky. As it rose higher I saw a pair of huge arms crossed over its chest, and a strange sort of shell that it seemed to be partially trapped in, and then the chains that kept it bound. And it was _huge_. It rose more than fifty feet high, and it looked like more of it was still beneath the ground. And it was also hideous. And it could only have been one thing.

"An aeon?"

"Anima!" Paine shouted.

A few of the crowd who had stayed to fight raised firearms and began to assault the horrible aeon. But instantly it was retaliating—and the consequences were immediately dire. Its one eye glowed for a second, and a blast fired to one of its attackers, who went reeling to the ground and didn't get up.

"Everybody get back!" Camall shouted, lowering his goggles. His machine gun deployed, and the wheel on the front with its three holes started to spin. Anima was quite visibly reeling from the rain of bullets that came flying from Camall's weapon, enough that it wasn't able to attack, only scream with its agony.

"Camall, you're doing it!" I cheered. And while the aeon was immobilized, others of us seized the opening. Vidina sent his blitzball flying at it, and Nadaleen hit it with a powerful fire spell. But then…

_TATATATATATATATATATclickclickclickclickclickclick_

"I'm out!" And as soon as the words had left Camall's mouth, the still active Anima was attacking again. Its head was waving around while its eye glowed, and it looked like it was going to attack at random. But just before the blast fired, I figured out its target: me. I barely had time to jump and backflip away from the blast. I enjoyed the triumph of knowing I'd evaded the attack for a fraction of a second, before I saw what was coming at me now. A floating eye that hadn't been taken out was rushing right at me, and I'd blundered right into its path, and there was no way I'd have time to dodge it. All I could do was close my eyes and scream and wait to feel its teeth.

Instead I felt a pair of arms around me, and someone pulling me away. The next thing I knew I was face down on the ground, and I lifted my head, initially expecting to see Vidina standing over me. The arms that held me felt like his type of musculature. But that definitely wasn't Vidina that I saw leaping at that floating eye, slashing with a pair of long daggers to cut it down. For one thing, his hair was brown, not orange, and it was too long for Vidina's. And he was wearing a light brown jacket that definitely didn't belong to Vidina.

When the fiend dropped and started fading, my rescuer turned and looked down at me. I stared up at a face that was beautifully flawless except for a short scar on his right cheek, and a pair of light brown eyes looking at me. And then he said only three words: "Watch yourself, klutz." And with that he was gone, dashing off somewhere else. I stood up and only stared after him. I didn't know whether to be fascinated with the handsome stranger who'd just saved me or irked with him for being such a jerk.

"Riza! Stay alert!" The sound of Paine's voice snapped me back to the present—and alerted me to what she wasn't seeing by shouting at me.

"Paine watch out!"

She turned around in time to see what was happening, but not to evade Anima's blast. And in the next second, Paine was rolling through the air and landing on her face.

"Paine!" all of us shouted.

We were relieved to find she was still well enough to push herself up and grunt, "Keep fighting!"

"I got her!" Camall called, running to Paine's side. I wanted to do what Paine told me; I really did. I wanted to keep fighting. But looking up at the massive screeching aeon, all I could think was: _how?_ Vidina hurled his blitzball, Nadaleen cast her magic, and some of the people from the stands were firing their guns, but as far as I could tell none of that was having much effect aside from making Anima mad. And even if Farru and I could comfortably get close enough to attack it before it blasted us away, I couldn't imagine we would accomplish much of anything.

And it was these thoughts that made me flinch when I heard another thunderous shriek—before I realized it didn't come from Anima. It was the airship that was tearing through the sky above us. It was hard to tell over the racket, but I think I heard Camall shout "They're here!"

We watched the craft circle around, and its salvos opened, releasing a barrage of missiles. The projectiles crashed against Anima, igniting in explosions that the aeon most definitely felt. It screeched even louder than ever, prompting me to drop to my knees and mash my hands over my ears. And then after the airship circled around again and let loose a second salvo, we could see that the assault was over. Anima was beginning to fade, its pyreflies dispersing.

Just before Anima was totally gone, its head reared back, and started screeching again—and after a second, I realized it was making words. Two words. _"Nnnnnnneeeeeeewwww Yyyyeeeeevvvvvoooonnnn…"_

And then the aeon vanished.

Camall came up behind me, carrying Paine with her arm over his neck. "Our ride has arrived," he said.

"Paine?" I didn't have to form a whole question.

"I'll be fine," she nodded. "Camall's potions helped."

"Come on everybody!" Vidina hurried us, already rushing for the exit. "Let's check out the airship!"

We made our way to the docks, where the silver, whale-shaped craft had touched down and was waiting for us. "Ypuid desa oui kud rana!" Camall called to the Al Bhed man who stood by the ramp leading to the open door.

"Vekinat oui luimt ryhtma ouincamv, Camall. Un fyc E fnuhk?" It sounded like a joke.

"This is Murran, everyone," Camall said.

"That's right. Welcome aboard the Explorer."

We filed up the ramp and into the airship. Murran shut the door behind us, saying, "Better sit tight, we're about to lift off again. We're headed for Steel Island."

"What's on Steel Island?" Farru asked.

"Something I was told you lot needed to see."

As the airship climbed into the sky, we began heading up to a higher deck, where we could get a view of the city below us through the slanted windows. And looking down at the stadium now, we were treated to a sudden and unpleasant dose of reality as we observed more than ever the results of the sudden attack. It was nice before to think we had saved just about everyone in the stands, but it just wasn't so. It wasn't so at all. Several people had not made it out of the stadium alive. All we could do was be thankful that we were still breathing, especially Paine. I looked to my right, where Nadaleen stood with tears streaming down her face. She gratefully accepted the comforting arm that Farru put around her.

"This sort of thing was supposed to have stopped happening when Sin was destroyed," Paine lamented, shaking her head. And honestly, even she didn't look too far away from tears herself. I hadn't seen the look on her face since she arrived on Besaid with her unhappy news.

So why couldn't I squeeze out any tears? I was definitely sad about what had just happened and for the people who had been prematurely sent to the Farplane, but at moment, I found I could really only think of one thing: the young man who saved me down there.

Who _was_ that guy?


	8. Steel Island

Steel Island was a marvel that seemed determined to defy nature. The fact that it was still a year away from being finished didn't stop it from being almost an otherworldly palace. Sure, all the bolts were still showing and many of the towers that clearly were supposed to be there weren't there yet. Still, as the airship made its approach, I couldn't stop staring out the window at it. A city of iron and steel built entirely on the water, that not only had no moorings to any natural landmass, but could actually move—or would be able to once it was finished—was just an amazing concept by itself, even without seeing it. Now that I was really looking at it…

_The Al Bhed are geniuses!_

Vidina, Farru, Nadaleen and I were all gathered by the windows, gazing out over the massive towers and spires as the Explorer approached the landing pad. Almost the second we touched down Murran and Camall were up on deck with us. "Let's go, people!" Murran beamed. "You especially, Riza. There's someone here who's really eager to see you!"

My face brightened. I knew exactly who he was talking about.

I was the first one to come rushing out of the hatch, and my smile spread even wider when I saw the old bald man walking at the front of the meeting party coming down the walkway. For a moment I let myself be a little kid again as I cheered "Uncle Cid!" and went sprinting for him and leaped at him with a happy squeal to throw my arms around him. I was definitely bigger now than the last time I'd done this, as my great uncle had to struggle to keep his balance.

"All right, down girl," he chuckled in that gravelly voice that I'd missed for a long time. I was still giggling like a little girl when my feet touched the ground again and my arms let go. But then I got a good look at his face. Cid was smiling too, but his smile was hollow. Something was very not right here. "It's good to see you too, Riza." He sounded like he meant that, like I was the one bright light in an otherwise dark day.

The rest of our group trudged up behind me, and Cid looked up to them. "Hey, Camall. …Hello, Paine."

"Hello, Cid."

"Vidina, how you doing on that volley shot?"

"Mastered and improved, Cid."

"Farru, looks like you've upgraded that walking stick of yours."

"Yep, it's got an edge now. Fiends beware."

"…I don't think we've met, darlin'."

"Nadaleen."

"Cid. Charmed."

"You don't look particularly charmed," I said.

Cid lowered his head and sighed. "I _am_ glad you're all here," he said. "There's something here you all need to see." His ominous tone was quite enough to get me worried as he turned and began leading us into the city.

We followed Cid into the gaping doors at the end of the walkway and through a series of rooms and halls that I would have taken the time to marvel at had we not had a dark cloud of worry hanging over us. He eventually guided us into an elevator that took us up I'm not sure how many floors. The doors opened to what looked like a medical bay, full of beds and monitors and equipment, and one area that was curiously curtained off. And that was where Cid started leading us now.

One of the nurses standing around looked up to Cid as he approached. "How is she?" Cid asked.

"Still no change."

"She who?" Vidina asked.

Cid put a hand on the curtain, and then paused, taking a breath and looking at us. "You'd better get ready for this." And with that he pulled the curtain back.

And all of us stood staring.

Lying there, comatose on that bed, was Rikku.

Uncharacteristically, Paine was the first of us to move, rushing to Rikku's side, shouting her name and taking her hand. "Where did you find her?" Farru gaped.

"Lake Macalania," Cid said. "Some of our people found her two days ago. She was lying unconscious on the ice with a few fiends sniffing at her. They chased the fiends away and brought her here. We haven't been able to wake her up since."

"You didn't find anyone else there?" Vidina asked, almost panting. "My mom and dad? Lady Yuna? Sir Tidus?"

Cid sullenly shook his head. "No one else. We scoured the lake, we sent probes under the ice… we found nothing. None of the other missing people, nothing to tell us how Rikku got there. But…"

All of us looked up at him. "But what?" I said.

After another brief pause he added, "We haven't looked inside the temple yet. The entrance has been blocked off by a wall of ice that we're still trying to get through."

We all looked at each other, each of us sharing the same thought.

"Does Gippal know about this?" Paine asked, still clutching Rikku's hand.

"Yeah, he does. He's got half the Machine Faction headed for Macalania to help clear the ice."

I stepped up to Rikku's side, looking down at her face—and then I noticed something else. A dark purple oval-shaped jewel was mounted on her forehead. "What is that?"

"We don't know," Cid shook his head. "We've tried everything we can think of to get it off her without hurting her, and nothing works. I don't know what that thing is, but I'll lay odds it's what's keeping her asleep."

"I've seen that somewhere before," I said, thinking hard. That jewel looked so familiar…

"Where?" Vidina said.

"I don't know…"

"The man from the Moonflow," Farru spoke up. "He had a jewel just like that."

_Of course!_

"He didn't seem to be comatose," Nadaleen pointed out.

"There has to be some kind of connection," I said. "He wasn't comatose, but he was a long way from normal."

"This is proof!" Vidina's voice boomed suddenly. "This is definite proof now! Finally! We have proof that New Yevon has got something to do with this!"

"Slow down, Vidina," Paine said. "This still doesn't prove anything."

"But it's the best lead we've found yet," I said. "We've got to check out that temple!"

"Well it's not going to do us much good if—" Paine began, before being rudely interrupted by the sudden obnoxious blaring of an alarm.

"What's that?" I had to shout.

"It's a break-in!" Camall shouted. "Something's been stolen!"

Farru was immediately dashing for the elevator, gripping his lance as if ready to run it through whatever popped up in front of him. "Farru, wait up!" I called, running after him. The rest of the group was not far behind. The next thing I knew the elevator was going down—at least I think it was going down. I didn't know what level we were going to, or how Farru knew where to go—that is assuming Farru was the one who hit the button. It might not have been him, actually. I think it might have been Camall, which would have made a lot more sense, but I'm not really sure. The blaring alarm thankfully stopped, replaced by an automated voice repeating _"Pnayg eh! Calinedo vunlac luhjanka!"_ It was far less painful on the ears, but still plenty annoying hearing it repeated constantly.

As soon as we stepped off the elevator, things went from annoying to deadly as a pair of machina drones were charging at us. "Get back!" Nadaleen shouted, stepping up and lashing out with her gauntleted hand, reducing one of the drones to scrap with a thunder spell. The other one was making a dash for Vidina when Camall launched his grappling claw, holding it back and giving it a charge that quickly shorted it out.

"Why are the machina attacking us?" Vidina gasped. "Aren't they supposed to be going after the thief instead of us?"

"Our thief is no amateur," Camall said. "They've sabotaged the instructional banks for the sentries to keep us busy."

"Camall, are these things designed to kill?" I asked.

"No, they're programmed to subdue an intruder, but in a totally nonlethal way."

"Could that have been sabotaged too?" Vidina said.

Camall frowned. "Boy I hope not."

"Let's go," Paine commanded.

Turning the next corner, three more machina drones were already rushing us. I leapt to attack the first one, slicing its mechanisms apart, and then rolled forward to dodge as the next one thrust at me. A second later that one was short-circuited by a bolt from Nadaleen, and then a flash of Paine's sword dismantled the third one. We encountered similar opposition along the way, but gradually we started running into more and more machina drones that were already disabled by the Al Bhed security forces that were making their way to wherever the culprit was. We finally ran into one security officer who told us something before hurrying off, which Camall translated for us: "The guy's trying to hijack a transport and make a getaway."

We made it to one of the landing pads in time to witness this for ourselves: a small air transport was already taking off and headed away from us. "He's getting away!" someone shouted.

"Oh, no he's not." Nadaleen stepped forward, clenching her fists and illuminating the jewels on both gauntlets, and then thrusting her hands forward. There was a flash of white as the engines of the transport were hit with the most intense blizzard spell I'd seen her use yet. A thick layer of ice instantly coated the outer hull of the vehicle, and it suddenly had no control, speeding down erratically to crash into one of the towers. Fortunately a pair of security transports were ready, extending grappling claws to get hold of the plummeting craft, stopping its wild descent and bringing it gently to rest by one of the boat docks.

We made our way to the nearest elevator, descending to the bottom level and hurrying to the dock, eager to get a look at this crook. We reached the dock in time to see the security forces dragging him out of the crashed transport, while another one of their officers strode toward us, carrying what looked like a black ball in a cage. "What was he after?" Farru asked.

The officer held up the thing in his hands. "It's one of the energy cores we use to power the city. We have six of them in place in key points already; this one is for a section that hasn't been completed yet. I'm sure our friend here thought he could get a good price by fencing this somewhere beyond our territory."

On that thought, we turned our eyes to take a look at "our friend," who the security forces were dragging along by his arms with his head down. And as they brought him closer, he lifted his head to look at us—and my mouth dropped open.

"Hey, it's you!" I gasped.

"Hey there, klutz," the roguishly good-looking jerk smiled at me.

"You know this guy?" Vidina asked.

"I saw him in Luca. How'd you get here?"

"Stowed away on your airship," he said. "Oh, and you're welcome, by the way."

"What's he talking about?" Farru said.

My lip curled into a snarl. "You know, I could've avoided that fiend on my own," I lied.

"I'm sure you could have. And I'm sure you could've chopped that aeon to pieces all by yourself, too."

"Just who do you think you are?" Nadaleen demanded. Then she pointed a finger to me and said, "Don't you know who she is?"

"My name is Jorin," the guy said. "And of course I know who you are," he added, looking at me. "You're Riza, High Summoner Yuna's daughter. Am I supposed to be impressed?"

I was definitely impressed. No one had ever said that to me before.

"Or am I supposed to curtsy before you, your highness?" he said, giving me a snide grin.

I stood gaping at him for a long moment—and then I reached back and slugged him one. I don't know what it was, but this guy was just getting under my skin in so many ways.

Jorin held his mouth open and shifted his soon-to-be-purple jaw. "Wow, didn't see that coming," he said calmly. "I had you figured for a nice girl."

"You figured wrong," I hissed.

"All right, that's enough," the security chief spoke up. "_Mulg res ib,_" he commanded to the other guards, before they began dragging him off. "We'll keep him under tight guard. He won't cause any more trouble."

"See you later, princess klutz," Jorin called back over his shoulder.

"Keep dreaming, jerk!" I shouted back to him. Why did I have to owe my life to a guy like that?

"Alright Riza," Paine said, "if you're done flirting, we should talk about what we're going to do from here."

"_FLIRTING?"_ I barked. "I was not flirting with that guy!"

"Whatever you say," Vidina grinned, folding his arms.

"Yeah, whatever you say. 'Cause I thought I smelled love in the air, but I guess that must've been exhaust fumes," Farru joked. Everybody started to chuckle.

"You guys shut up!" I snapped. "That guy's a jackass! The only reason I'd want to see him again is to hit him some more!"

"Seriously, everyone," Nadaleen put in, "shouldn't we be heading for Lake Macalania about now?"

The mood sobered. "She's right," Camall nodded. "We need to see if we can get into the temple."

We all silently agreed. We couldn't forget about what we were trying to do. We headed for the elevator, and made our way back to the Explorer, where Murran was waiting for us on the bridge. "Let's head off, Murran," Camall said. "Lake Macalania, ho."

"Yes sir," Murran nodded.

Huffing, I took a seat in a chair, folded my arms and crossed my legs, looking away from everyone with a snarl on my face. I tried hard to think about the mission ahead of us, and not dwell on how much I wanted to go back and beat that Jorin guy to a bloody pulp.


	9. Under the Ice

_(To my faithful readers: if you've been following this story, I apologize for my long hiatus. I've had my plate full with a number of other writing projects, which has kept me distracted from this for a while. I'll try not to let myself get sidetracked from future chapters too much.)_

*CLANG*

*KTANG*

The wind whipped past us as my sword glanced off of Paine's. "You're forcing it," she said. "Relax, and let the openings come to you." I nodded, and parried her next swing. She ducked under my attack, and brought her sword around to go for my neck. I clumsily parried her and stumbled back, but managed to get my footing in time to dodge her thrust. "Good recovery," Paine said.

I'm not sure how long we'd been sparring for. Paine had suggested we should brush up on my sword skills to kill some time before we got to Macalania. And after our encounter with Jorin, I needed to vent some aggression anyway. Imagining that it was Jorin I was fighting helped cool my head a little.

Paine stepped back after parrying one of my attacks, lowering her sword. "What is it?" I asked.

"Just memories," Paine said, shaking her head wistfully. "Your mother used to train with me like this."

"When you were the Gullwings," I said, remembering the stories my mom had told me.

"When I first met Yuna, she was… to put it gently, not very good with a sword. Spirited and determined, definitely, but to be honest kind of clumsy. She relied on me a lot, especially in the beginning."

"You taught her to use a sword? You were using the dresspheres then, weren't you? I thought dresspheres carried the skills of whoever created them, don't they?"

"Partially. But it's like a template of base skills that someone has to develop for themselves."

"So you taught her to do that?"

"I taught her a lot of things," Paine nodded. "For one…" she began—before suddenly raising her sword and lunging at me, an attack I just barely managed to block. "…to never let your guard down."

"I'll remember that." With that I brought the Brotherhood around to swing at her from the other side. She parried my blow, and came at me with a low attack. I leapt into the air, vaulting not only over her attack but over her head completely, landing on my feet back-to-back with her. I was just about to come around for a spin attack when I found the blade of Paine's sword poised inches from my throat.

"You're definitely good with evasive moves, Riza, but you're overdoing it. Make sure you know what you're jumping into before you start showing off with acrobatics. Next time there might not be a roguish thief around to pull you out of harm's way."

I groaned. I'd seriously hoped she hadn't seen that. "Let's not bring that up. Ever."

I suddenly noticed how cold it had started getting. There was a radio crackle, and Murran's voice echoed, "Everybody inside! We're coming up on Macalania!"

Paine lowered her sword. "Come on," she said, "let's find your parents."

We returned to the elevator, and made our way back to the bridge. Vidina and Camall were already there, standing on either side of Murran. Out the front screen a glorious view of the huge frozen lake was coming closer and closer, and we could already see several of the Machine Faction gathered around a big hole in the ice with a few long cords running into it. "I'm getting word that they're almost in," Murran said. "Looks like we're just in time."

"I just hope there's something to find in there," Camall said. "If there's nothing in there but ice, Gippal's gonna be pissed."

"Yeah, so am I," Vidina nodded.

"We should get ready," Paine said. "Where are Farru and Nadaleen?"

"They were admiring the view from the halls, last I saw 'em," Vidina said.

We looked towards the doors for a moment, before Murran moved to the intercom and pressed the button. "Farru, Nadaleen, get up here already!"

A few minutes later the two of them emerged through the door, panting from apparently having been running. "Hi guys," Farru breathed. "Sorry about that."

My eyes tracked down, noticing that they were holding hands. I folded my arms and gave them a smirk. "What'cha been up to?" I grinned.

They looked at each other awkwardly. "Nothing," Farru said innocently while Nadaleen started to giggle.

"You two kids are gonna have to put your make-out session on hold," Camall said with a tiny smirk of his own, "'cause we got work to do."

We grabbed some heavy coats and stepped out onto the ice. Instantly several Al Bhed stepped up to greet us, which only a few of them did in Spiran. Of course, most of their attention was on me. While there were several Al Bhed there who I'd seen while we were at Djose, most of the ones greeting me were ones who hadn't been there, and they were gushing with sympathy and insisting that they were doing everything possible to find our families. Didn't they realize I'd heard the same thing from half of Spira already? There's only so much sympathy a girl can take before her head explodes.

We approached the big hole in the ice, where several Al Bhed were gathered around machina that I'm guessing were feeding power or something through the cords to whatever they had down under the lake. I didn't see Gippal anywhere. So I asked. "Where's Gippal?"

Apparently I picked the wrong Al Bhed to ask, because the guy I was talking to when I said that just gave me a curious look. I guess he didn't speak Spiran. Luckily another guy who happened to hear me did. "He's down there in one of our submersibles."

"Submer-what?"

Almost like it was answering me, the next second the water started to ripple, and some big machina thing with a glass half-dome on the front rose up out of it. A hatch opened, and a walkway extended onto the ice that Gippal and a couple other Al Bhed walked out on. He raised his arms in the air and shouted, _"Fa'na drnuikr!"_ Immediately all the other Al Bhed, including Camall, started cheering. I guess it was good news. Actually, I'm not guessing, because then Camall translated for us: "They're through."

Okay, that made me happy.

Gippal noticed us then, and walked up to us in a hurry. "Hey, guys, I'm glad you're here," he said.

"Are our parents down there?" Vidina blurted.

Farru pulled gently on Vidina's shoulder. "Down boy."

"We haven't actually looked inside yet," said Gippal. "We've at least checked to make sure it's not flooded in there. I thought you guys would want to come with us when we took a look in there."

"You thought right," I nodded.

"Well then let's move," Gippal said, turning to head back to his submer-whatsit. We followed him.

I tried really hard not to show it, but I was actually kind of shaking while my feet pinged across the metal walkway, and I was being real careful not to look down at the water less than a foot beneath me with only this narrow metal platform separating me from it. I mean, it's not like I'm afraid of water or anything; if you've been paying attention to my story, you know I'm a natural born blitzer and I love to swim. But I was already freezing my ass off, and I just knew if I ended up taking a dip in that water I wasn't going to last long enough to scream. Maybe it's a result of growing up in Besaid, but I just don't like cold.

Nadaleen was the last one inside. The walkway retracted and the hatch closed behind her. Gippal gave a command to the guy sitting in front of the half-dome, and then through the glass the world started moving up, and the waterline came up over the portholes. Then all that was around us was blue darkness.

This thing we were in suddenly felt like a steel coffin. A _cold_ steel coffin. I pulled my coat tighter around me. I felt Vidina's hand on my shoulder, and I looked up into his comforting eyes. That helped.

Nadaleen looked just as uncomfortable as I was. She pressed herself into Farru's chest, slipping her hand into his. At least Camall looked okay, and Paine… well, she was Paine. She just stood there, her arms folded, totally stoic. Same old Paine.

With the lights shining from the front, by now we could see two more of these Al Bhed sub-thingawhatevers floating in front of the huge sunken ruin covered in ice. Way down near the bottom was a jagged tunnel through the ice that the Al Bhed had just finished digging, leading to the ornate double doors decorated with Yevon symbols. Gippal gave the driver directions, and moved in toward those doors.

When we neared the tunnel, our vehicle rotated so that the hatch was facing the doors. We parked at the mouth of the tunnel, and through the porthole in the hatch we could see a wide tube extending, creating a sealed walkway from the hatch to the doors, and when the tube connected and our tunnel was finished a crew member threw a lever and the water began draining from it, clearing a path for us.

The hatch opened. We were going in.

Well, structurally speaking, the Macalania temple was about what I was expecting. Of course I'd been in the temple in Besaid many times, and I'd recently gotten to see Djose temple, so this place was pretty much the same. That is except for one thing:

Ice.

Ice.

Ice ice ice.

Ice ice ice ice ice ice ice _ice!_

The place was completely frozen. I'd been trying to look tough up until that point, but right then no power in Spira could've stopped me from shivering. I pulled my coat so tight around me I think I might've torn it in a few places. I'd never been any place so cold in my life. And I think I just mentioned that I don't like cold, right? Right. So I think it goes without saying that I absolutely hated this place. I also hated the thought of my parents being trapped in a place like this. If they were here, I could not get them out of here fast enough.

In fact I could not get _me_ out of here fast enough.

"N-N-N-Nadaleen," I managed to get out—and sounding so pathetic I could kill myself—"y-you think you c-c-could maybe… I, I don't know, u-use s-s-some …f-fire magic and thaw this place?"

"Even if I could… use that much power… at once…" Nadaleen shivered, "we'd… we'd only end up… swimming in f-freezing water."

Looking at the sheer amount of ice we were surrounded by, I came to the crushing realization that she was right. That ice wasn't going anywhere.

Then I noticed the doors, which were strangely the only parts of the room not covered with ice. It didn't look like the ice had naturally formed around the doors, either; it was shaped in perfect frames around the doors. Paine and Camall were each coming back from inspecting the side rooms. "Nothing in there," Paine said.

"Nothing there, either," Camall said, pointing a thumb back to the door behind him. "Just more ice."

I wondered briefly why anyone would bother to uncover the doors to rooms that they were just going to leave frozen, but then that only left the middle door; the door to the Cloister of Trials. "G-guess we go with door number th-th-th-three," I said.

Camall was the first to the door, with the rest of us following. We entered into a narrow tunnel—that of course was made entirely out of ice. And not just the outer covering of ice over the stone walls and floor and ceiling in the room behind us; this was all ice, and I had no idea how thick. And I thought I was cold before.

Nadaleen almost doubled over clutching herself and shivering, until Farru came up behind her and put his arm around her, wrapping her in his coat. "It's okay, I've got you," he said softly. She smiled coyly at him.

For as long as I'd been seeing what was going on between those two, this was first time I'd caught myself feeling jealous. Walking through that tunnel, clutching my arms and chattering my teeth, I wanted more than anything to have someone to wrap me in their arms like that…

Well, I sort of got my wish. Vidina came up and wrapped me in his coat too. I looked up at his face, which was looking ahead awkwardly. "We're just doing this for warmth, ya?" he said. I turned my head from him and smiled to myself… then I looked at him again…

For just a brief moment I didn't see Vidina's face. I saw a roguish-looking face with long brown hair and a scar on his cheek…

"Riza? Something wrong girl?"

"No, nothing," I said, shaking my head uncomfortably. Why in Spira was I picturing Jorin's face now? Why was I thinking of that prick at a time like this?

We got to the next room, the room before the Chamber of the Fayth, with me having come up with no answers to that question. This room looked pretty much like the entrance, all covered in ice except for the door. But of course, this was the door leading to the Chamber of the Fayth. Not exactly the kind of door that opens so easily.

"More ice," Farru moaned. "Is anyone else starting to think this was all just a big, very cold waste of time?"

"We still haven't seen the Chamber of the Fayth," Paine pointed out.

"Right," Nadaleen breathed. "And I think… if there's… anything to find here… that's where it would be."

"Well, anybody here a S-Summoner?" I muttered. "O-or maybe someone brought a… k-key?"

"It might not be that difficult," Paine said, cautiously stepping up to the door covering—which suddenly opened when she got close.

"You're right," I said, impressed. "That wasn't difficult."

"It does seem like someone has been using this door if it's set to open just like that," Camall said.

"But the entrance to the temple was covered with ice that the Al Bhed had to drill through," Farru pointed out. "How did they come and go? It doesn't make sense."

"Why don't we stop talking about it and see what's in there?" Vidina said.

Straight to the point. We all nodded agreement, and we walked through that door.

I took one look at the chamber on the other side, and… as cold as I was already was, I suddenly got a chill down my spine. Yes, there was ice in that chamber, but it was what I saw in the ice that horrified me.

People.

The walls in the chamber were covered with ice, and dozens of people were trapped frozen inside it. They were all upright, eyes closed as if they were just sleeping. And not all of them were human, either. Several of them were Ronso.

"This is… what is…" Nadaleen tried to say.

"It's them!" Farru blurted out. "It's the people from Mt. Gagazet!"

I looked around at the faces I saw in the ice, frantically trying to find my mom and dad, or even Vidina's for that matter. I didn't see them. "Not all of them," Vidina finally said for me.

"Damn it!" I shouted, banging my foot down.

"Hey, look at this," Paine said, stepping up to the ice, looking closely at a few of the faces there. A few of us stepped forward—and then I saw what she was looking at. Every one of the people trapped in the ice, every single one of them, had a purple jewel on their forehead just like the one on Rikku. Even the Ronso had them beneath their horns.

"This just keeps getting weirder and weirder," Farru said.

"Camall," Paine commanded, "go get Gippal and the others. We need to thaw these people out."

Camall nodded, and turned to start leaving—and suddenly stopped short. "Whoa!"

We all turned to where he was facing, and saw that we were suddenly not alone. Standing at the doorway before us was what could only have been another rogue aeon, this one the figure of a woman made entirely of ice. We each gripped our weapons, ready for a fight, but as it turned out, this aeon wasn't going to bother with that kind of trouble.

Instead she raised her arms into the air, producing an icy white flash from one hand, and then thrust her hand toward us. Instantly we felt an intense wave of cold blowing at us, and more ice began springing up around us, surrounding us… trapping us…

Ice began to engulf me. And at that point all complex thought became impossible. All I could think was _cold ice cold cold ice ice freezing so cold can't move cold can't move ice freezing pain cold ice help me freezing can't breathe cold white white freezing can't breathe can't see…_

Blackness.


	10. Alive Again

_I saw a city. Bigger than Luca. Bigger than Bevelle. A city full of towering buildings, and blinking, flashing, glowing lights that blotted out the stars in the night sky above it. I saw hundreds of thousands of people, walking wherever they were going, passing me by with total indifference._

_I was standing in the middle of a bustling street amongst all these people. I looked up, seeing a huge screen on the building next to me, and it was showing my dad's face. My dad looked back at me from that screen; he looked younger than I knew him._

_I heard his voice speaking to me. "It's all you now, Riza," he said._

_I felt someone behind me, and I turned around. My mom was standing there. She looked younger, too. "We always knew you were special," she said._

_All of a sudden the city around me came to a stop. Everyone froze right where they were in mid-stride. Only my mom was still moving. And then I caught more movement out of the corner of my eye. I looked to the side, where I saw a small boy in a purple hooded vest. "Our dream is yours now," he said._

"_Who are you?"_

_Before I could get an answer, the city began to fade…_

"E drehg cra'c fygehk ib," someone said.

I blinked several times before I was able to make out the white ceiling above me, and the face of an Al Bhed man looking down at me. He moved away from me once my vision started to clear. As soon as I was awake enough to feel my body, I wished I wasn't. Every part of my skin felt frozen and stiff.

It took me a second to remember why. The last thing I recalled was being trapped in ice by an aeon, and while I clearly wasn't there anymore, it still felt like I was. I groaned. I groaned loud.

I lifted my head just as much as I could stand to, and saw Gippal approaching me. "How do you feel?" he asked.

"Like shoopuff doody."

"At least she still sounds like Riza," said someone off to my right. I turned my head to see Farru, already awake and sitting up in another bed past the one where Nadaleen was still out cold (pardon my pun). Vidina, Paine and Camall were still sleeping to my left.

A little while later all of us were awake and sitting upright in the beds the Machine Faction had put us in, most of us wrapping ourselves tight in the heavy blankets they'd put over us. Gippal explained to us that we were in the outpost the Al Bhed had set up next to the lake, and that it had been nearly three days since we went into the temple. He said he and his group had fought off the aeon and gotten us out of the temple, along with the rest of the people who were frozen in there. They'd spent the days since then thawing us out. While we'd woken up, as we expected the other people were still comatose, just like Rikku.

"I'd like to check on them," Paine said, shakily getting to her feet and shedding her blanket.

"You sure you're up for moving around?" Gippal said.

"Just take me to them," she said.

Gippal gave no further argument. He'd known Paine long enough to know not to try to change her mind. He guided her out of the room.

"Farru?" Nadaleen said weakly. "…I'm still cold."

Farru managed to get up from his bed, climb onto Nadaleen's and fold her into his arms. Nadaleen closed her eyes, laid her head against his chest and hummed softly.

"Get a room, kids," Camall said, arising from his bed and heading for the door. "I'm gonna find a bathroom."

Personally, I thought the two of them had the right idea. I would've liked to have been in Nadaleen's place right then, after being surrounded by all that ice… ice, ice, ice… I shivered. I could still feel the ice forming around me, sealing me in, freezing every nerve in my body… I think I have an idea now of what being dead must feel like.

To my left, Vidina was up on his feet, flexing his stiff muscles. "Hey, Vidina," I said.

"Yeah?"

"Come here a second."

Vidina walked over to my bed. "A little closer," I said, beckoning him with my finger.

He bent down closer to me. "What's up, Riza?"

I grabbed his collar and stared him right in the face. "I never, _ever_ want to see ice again!"

***

Sadly, I did end up having to see ice again a few hours later, when we stepped outside and walked the short distance from the outpost to where Murran had landed the airship. But as soon as we were inside the airship… ohhh, I had never been so happy to inside any place in my life. It was _warm_ in there! Ahhh, warmth! I went straight for the cabin and flopped right down on my bed, which right then might as well have been made out of clouds.

I think I must have dozed off for a while, because I didn't even feel it when the airship finally lifted off. I was just so happy to be in a warm room, lying on a soft, warm bed, and _not surrounded by ice! _ I could already tell that being frozen was going to become a staple of my nightmares for the rest of my life.

What I remember next was seeing Vidina sitting down on the bed next to me, with a heavy look on his face. "Vidina? Something wrong?"

He turned his head and stared at me. "Riza, how are you so relaxed?"

I wrinkled my brow, puzzled by his question. "It's a skill," I quipped.

"Aren't you disappointed?"

"About what?"

"We should've found our parents down there. But we didn't."

_Oh, yeah._ My face fell. "I guess I've been trying not to think about it. Trying and succeeding, apparently."

"We went through all that trouble, walked through that ice box and got ourselves frozen for nothing!"

"It wasn't for nothing! We found a whole bunch of people down there!"

"A bunch of people who aren't any better off since we got them out of there, and we still didn't find the ones we were looking for. And we're still no closer to finding them, either."

"Come on, Vidina, that's cold." …We both paused while he looked at me and I rolled my eyes, neither of us pleased by my choice of words. "What I mean is, at least we accomplished something. We know that someone put those people in that temple, so that's got to be a clue."

"I don't care about clues anymore!" Vidina fumed, pounding the bed with his fist. "I'm tired of running around, chasing leads! We all know Roumsey's got something to do with this, but we're too busy trying to prove it to do what we should be doing!"

"And what's that?"

"Flying this tub back to Bevelle and choking some answers out of Roumsey!"

"Well what if we're wrong? What if he's not the one who's got them?"

"Then at least we'll know. We put the squeeze on him till he either coughs up where they are or convinces us that he doesn't have 'em!"

I frowned, and sighed. I got up and sat down on Vidina's bed next to him, putting a hand on his shoulder. "Vidina, I know you're still upset about this. I am too. But you gotta calm down. You're not thinking."

"Maybe because I'm tired of thinking. I wanna start doing!"

This was a twist, I realized. I was usually the impatient one of the two of us. Vidina had always been the patient, cautious one. I thought back on all the times back on Besaid when he'd tried to talk me and Farru out of our latest adventures, sometimes even alerting our parents when he really thought our plan was a bad idea and we couldn't be dissuaded (which never exactly endeared him to us). But then, that was just it: he'd never been as brave as I was. He didn't have the same kind of courage to deal with this the way I was dealing with it. As much as I'd been out of my mind for the last—I'd totally lost count by now of how many days it had been—not knowing where my parents were or if they were even alive, I could only imagine how Vidina was handling the same situation.

I sat there for a long while, trying to come up with anything I could say to him. I got nothing. I mean, come on, who was I to try to talk down someone who was looking for trouble? Trouble is what I do best.

I guess being calm and thinking things through was what Paine was there for. "We should talk to Paine, and see what she thinks."

Vidina looked at me, not looking happy with that, and then finally got up and started walking for the stairway. "Fine. I'll go talk to Paine."

I felt an unpleasant feeling in my stomach watching him walk away unfulfilled like that. "Vidina," I said, getting up and then stopping blank. Vidina looked back over his shoulder at me, waiting for me to continue. Which is exactly what I was waiting for, too. "I don't mean… I mean I… I understand what you…"

"Riza, I don't need you trying to give me talking to right now, so just skip it." And then he left.

I sat back down heavily. _Ugh… that could've gone better._ When I thought about it, though, Vidina was right about one thing: we needed to do something. We just had to figure out what, and with the mood he was in we should probably figure it out sooner rather than later. I decided I should find the others and discuss our next move.

I exited the cabin in time to find Camall approaching. "Oh, hey Camall. Did you see Vidina come this way just now?"

"Yeah, he was heading back that way," he said, pointing a thumb over his shoulder.

"Paine that way?"

"Last I saw her. Something up?"

"Vidina's frustrated. We should start working out where we go from here."

"Already? Don't you think we oughtta take a while to relax after what we've just been through?"

I kind of chuckled to myself. "Yeah, that's exactly what I thought, but I don't think Vidina's capable of relaxing right now."

Camall looked back behind him. "That guy needs to unwind."

"Can you really blame him?"

"You seem okay."

I rolled my eyes. "Let's just work on getting everyone together. Do you know where Farru and Nadaleen are?"

"Nah, but they're around here somewhere."

"I'm gonna go look for them."

A curious smirk crept into Camall's face. "You do that," he said before turning and leaving. I creased my brow, wondering what was going through that head of his when he said that.

So I started wandering the corridors, looking for them. It didn't take me all that long; I mean, honestly, the airship really wasn't that big. But as soon as I turned a corner and found them, I came to an instant stop. Farru had his back up against the wall, and he was clutching Nadaleen to him tightly. But that wasn't the reason I froze so suddenly.

The fact that they were in the middle of an intense lip-lock was.

"Whoa!" I gasped.

They immediately broke their kiss and looked up at me. "Riza…" Farru said bashfully. Nadaleen put a hand over her bright pink face and turned away giggling. "Well, I guess the secret's out," Farru said.

"What secret?" I said. "Everyone's seen you two making googly eyes at each other! Heck, Camall's been gabbing about it all the time," I added, realizing Camall must have known I was going to find them like this.

"Well, we just… I mean…" Farru stammered.

"Hey, don't worry about it," I said, stepping forward. "Everybody's happy for you guys. Anyway, we're getting everybody together for some planning, so we should head to the bridge."

"Yeah, okay," Farru nodded.

They started walking hand-in-hand when I had another thought. "Actually, Nadaleen, why don't you go ahead, and give me a Farru a minute to talk."

They looked at each other a moment, and Farru nodded. They came together briefly for another kiss, and then slowly pulled apart, keeping their hands together for as long as possible. Farru kept staring after Nadaleen as she walked away. I stepped up to him chuckling. "Glad to see something good came out of this mess."

Farru didn't answer. He just kept staring in the direction Nadaleen had gone. "Uh, hello? Farru?"

"I think I love that girl."

"Hey, Farru! Can you step out of the clouds and rejoin the rest of us on Spira please?"

"What?"

"Look, Farru, it's great you've found someone who makes your head go all flooey, but I'm talking to you here."

"Sorry, I'm listening."

"I'm worried about Vidina."

"Vidina? Why?"

"He's not handling what happened in that temple so well. He's really disappointed that we didn't find our parents, and he's acting like he wants to kill something."

"Vidina?"

"Yeah, exactly."

"Well… I don't know what you want me to do. You're the one whose parents are missing too; I don't know what I'm gonna say."

I paused, shrugging. "I don't know what to say to him either. I just think… look, except for me, you know him better than any of us. I don't know, maybe one of us can get through to him or something…"

Farru sighed. "All right. I'll try talking to him, maybe I can get him to gear down."

***

A few minutes later we were all gathered on the bridge. Vidina had his arms folded and was staring out the front screen past where Murran was sitting. "So, where do we go now?" I asked.

"I think I might have an idea," Murran said. "There's some big hubbub going on over at Bevelle."

"Hubbub?" Farru said. "What kind of hubbub?"

"Seems you got the Youth League really riled up with your speech in Luca," Murran said. "Now they're banging on New Yevon's door, demanding that Roumsey release the High Summoner and the others."

"And you think we should intervene?" Camall asked.

"I think we should at least check it out," Murran said.

"So it's back to Bevelle," said Paine.

Vidina slapped his fist and open palm together. "About time, ya?"


	11. The Siege of Bevelle

Let me tell you, when Murran said the Youth League was "banging on New Yevon's door," he wasn't kidding. They just weren't banging with their fists. They were banging with cannons. "Wow, they're pulling out all the stops down there!" Camall said, observing the scene below us.

"It looks like they're going to war over this," Farru said. And I had to agree with him; that was exactly what it looked like. The Youth League were equipped with all the guns they had, from their rifles to their cannons, laying siege to the outer walls of Bevelle. New Yevon was responding by sending out their mechs to take the fire and beat back the encroaching guns. It was absolute chaos.

"What have I started?" I cringed.

"Well whatever you started, it's perfect," Vidina said.

"Perfect?"

"It's just the distraction we need. Murran, take us down to the towers."

"Now hold on," Paine said. "This isn't the time to go charging in blind. We need to plan our next move."

"Screw that," Vidina barked, "I'm going down there!"

With that Vidina turned and went charging off the bridge. "Vidina, wait!" I called after him, just as the automatic doors closed behind his running form. I took off after him, but he was already gone from view when I made it to the halls.

It didn't take much thinking to figure out where he was headed, though. I got in the elevator as soon as I could get it to come back to me after he got off it, and took it down to the bottom level. I made it to the emergency hatch just as it was closing. Next to the hatch were the glider boards, a set of boards with wings and handles Camall had invented that people could ride on to make a quick exit in case of emergency. One of them was gone.

I don't know at what point the others started following me, but when I turned around everyone else was there, and all of them were on the same page as me. "Well it looks like Vidina's made our decision for us," Paine said. "We'd better go down and get him before he does something stupid."

"-Er," I amended.

Each of us grabbed a board, and we opened the hatch. I gripped the handles of my board and jumped out, planting my knees in the grooves and spreading the wings… and fought off the impulse to scream. You know, I'm just going to be straight and say that riding on a glider board is one of those experiences you really need to have before you die. It's definitely a candidate for the most exhilarating thing I've ever done, and for me, that's saying something.

I steered the board toward a bridge at the top of one of the main walls, where I could see Vidina had landed and was knocking a New Yevon guard unconscious with a toss of his blitzball, before making a run for the towers. I narrowly dodged a canon blast, and dove in, coming into a kind of rough but altogether okay landing that left me with only a little bruise or two on my shin. The others landed similarly behind me, though Nadaleen's landing looked a little bumpier than the rest of ours. Farru was quickly by her side, helping her to her feet.

I think we were landed for ten seconds before three more New Yevon guards had their rifles on us, shouting "Stop right there!"

"Hey, hold on, we're not looking for trouble," I tried to say, but I don't think they were listening.

"What do you want here?"

"Don't move!"

"Damn Youth League sympathizers!"

"Look guys," Farru said, "let's slow down and talk about this—"

"Look out!" Camall suddenly shouted. We heard the canon shot whistling through the air in time to dive and duck. The blast hit the wall just behind where we'd been standing, sending rubble flying up around us. I kept my head down and covered until I was sure it was clear, and then lifted my head to see the guards had been knocked back and out cold by the blast. Not exactly how we wanted to resolve the conflict, but it would do.

"Let's go!" Paine commanded.

We couldn't see Vidina anymore, but the path was pretty straightforward. But we didn't make it very far before we started running into more opposition. Big opposition. Big as in YAC-13's and YAU-28's. Two of the first and one of the second, to be exact. "Do these things think we're with the Youth League?" Nadaleen said.

"I don't think New Yevon was expecting anyone else to be coming this way," Camall said. "They let the guard dogs out on whoever tries to break in, and right now that means us."

"Heads up," Farru alerted us as a YAC-13 cocked its canon arm and launched a mortar at us. We scattered and dodged as the mortar hit the ground and exploded. Paine recovered quickly and dashed for it, bringing up her sword in a flash. One of the gun arms on the mech was sliced off, and I jumped in to finish the job, giving that thing another good hack that dropped it to the ground.

I grinned proudly up at Paine, who only gave me a stern "Stay alert!" I guess it was a good thing she did, because when I looked up the YAU-28 was hopping up to kick its hanging leg at me. I quickly jumped back from the attack—and had a split-second to notice the other YAC-13 launching another mortar. I did a quick backflip, but not quite quick enough. Just as my hands touched the floor the mortar hit the ground just a bare few feet from me, the blast knocking me rolling away.

My head spinning, I pushed myself up off the floor. I'd picked up a few scratches from that blast, and they were stinging. "Okay," I grunted, rising to my knees, "now I'm annoyed."

Nadaleen staggered the YAC-13 by splashing it with an intense water spell. I wanted to make sure I got the final blow on that one before anyone else did. "Let me at it!" I shouted as I got to my feet and hefted the Brotherhood. But Farru beat me to it, giving it a taste of his lance that brought it to the ground.

Well, at least I still had the third mech to thrash on. Camall slashed through the gears of the YAU-28 with his blade wheel, and a slash from Paine's sword hacked off its kicking leg. I wasn't waiting for anyone else to take the final blow against that thing, and a leap attack later I had that thing in a heap at my feet. "That wasn't so hard," I said, looking back at the others—

"Riza, look out!" Nadaleen shouted.

I spun around—another YAU-28 had come out of nowhere, and its kicking leg was coming up at me—

WHAM

Everything started spinning. I could barely see through the stars and my head was ringing, but somehow I knew that the mech had kicked me up into the air, and I was about to hit the ground hard. Except I didn't.

WHAM again.

Its second kick sent me flying. I was careening through the air, sailing out over the edge of the bridge, hearing the others shouting my name as I started falling down off the building to the city streets far below me. I shut my eyes, not wanting to see the ground before I went splat… for the first time, I found myself hoping my parents actually _were_ dead, so they would be there to greet me when I made it to the Farplane. Because I couldn't die like this if they were still alive. Not here. Not now. Not before I found them—

I stopped falling. I opened my eyes and saw the streets still hundreds of feet below me, my feet dangling over empty air… and I felt someone's hand holding my arm. I didn't look up before whoever it was pulled me up. I took a moment just to appreciate the fact that there was floor beneath me, and that I wasn't a messy splatter on it. When I took in my surroundings, I saw that I was on a covered walkway on some upper level of the city, with a railing along the edge that my savior had just reached over to grab me. Speaking of which, who was my savior, anyway?

I looked up…

"Hiya, klutz."

_Oh no, it's him._

"Jorin! What are you doing here?"

"Saving your clumsy tail."

"Get off of me!" I barked, pushing him away and climbing to my feet.

"You're welcome, princess."

"Whatever, I just…" I couldn't think of anything else to say. This was just too much. This jackass had just saved my life _again_. And as horrible as it was to admit, I was grateful to him. Which meant I couldn't hack him apart with—

I looked down at my sword hand, which was empty. I looked around my feet, and I saw nothing. "My sword! Where's my sword?"

"Blue, shimmering blade, hook on the tip, red ribbon hanging off the end?"

I shot a both curious and accusatory look at him, wondering why he remembered it with that much detail. He read my look and explained, "I'm a thief, remember? I always pay attention to things that look like they'd fetch a good price."

I snarled and grabbed him by the collar, pinning him up against a pillar. "That's my dad's sword, you bastard! Now where is it?"

"It's down there," he said, pointing his thumb over the railing. Still holding him in place with one hand, I leaned to look over the railing, and yes, it was down there, on top of an ornamental archway several stories below us. Damn.

"Rizaaaaa!" I heard Farru call from way up above me.

"I'm okay!" I called back. "I just gotta go get my sword!" To myself, I groaned at hearing myself say it out loud. I was supposed to be going to get Vidina right now; instead I had to go down several stories and climb out on top of an archway to get my sword—and I was here contemplating this with _Jorin_. Sometimes, my life just sucks.

I turned and ran for the first stairway I could find, and started running down flight after flight of stairs. I stopped when I was pretty sure I'd gone down far enough, and ran out onto the walkway… I looked out over the ledge… "Damn it!" I'd gone down too far. The archway was above me now. Ugh, this was not my day.

And then it got worse. I heard "Look out!" and then someone was on top of me, brining me to the ground as a canon shot hit the wall behind where my head had just been. "You alright klutz?"

Of course, Jorin had to follow me down all of those stairs and save me _again_, and now I had him laying on my back. "I will be as soon as you get off of me," I snarled.

He got up off my back and I hopped to my feet to hurry back to the stairway. "You're welcome again," he called from behind me.

I went back up one story, and found the archway with my sword on it, only now getting a glimpse of the gymnastics I was going to need to employ to get it. Fortunately that's something I'm good at. I climbed over the railing and hopped over the hills and valleys that the archway was covered in. The Brotherhood was resting in a nook just hanging over the edge, where just the slightest nudge in the wrong direction could send it falling to the street below, and where I had to hold onto a spire and stretch myself out to reach for it. I could just barely get close enough to touch the handle with my fingertips… I stretched a little farther…

I ended up accidentally giving it a tiny push. It shifted, and started sliding down… I grabbed it by the ribbon and pulled it up into my hand. Letting my breath out, I hoisted myself back up—

"Hey you! What are you doing out there!"

When I turned around, another New Yevon guard was at the railing, pointing his rifle at me. "What is it with you guys and pointing your guns at everyone?"

"Get off of there, now!"

THUD

The guard dropped like a ton of bricks, and Jorin was standing in his place after bringing the butt of his dagger down on his head. He reached his hand out over the railing for me. "Could you use a hand?"

My lip curled up… but I took his hand anyway and let him pull me back. I gave him the courtesy of just a second's glance before turning to find a way back up to join the others. "You know, I don't know what's worse about you," Jorin called from behind me, "the way you keep getting into trouble or the problem you have saying thank you."

I pointedly ignored him. I concentrated instead on trying to navigate the winding stairways and walkways going up. I still don't know if there was any other way I could've gone that would have gotten me back to the others, but where I ended up was on another path overlooking the spot where they were in the middle of fighting with a few more guards and mechs. As Nadaleen beat down a guard with a heavy water spell, I called down to them. "Hey! Up here!"

"Riza!" Farru called back. "Do you see Vidina from there?"

_Huh, there's a thought._ I turned around, and lo and behold, I _did_ see Vidina. He was running up the steps to a massive door, stopping to chuck his blitzball at a guard and dodge the attack of another. "Yeah, I see him! I'm going after him! Can you guys handle things down there?"

Paine used her sword to deflect a kick from a YAU-28. "We're okay. Get Vidina!"

I clenched my jaw and nodded, and hurried off for Vidina. A couple of guards appeared in front of me, but fortunately for me they were headed in Vidina's direction, to deal with the guy causing the most trouble. I jumped onto one of the guards, putting my hands on his shoulders and throwing him to the ground hard. Jorin did similarly to the other one next to me.

"Vidina!"

I got his attention as he caught his rebounding blitzball that had just knocked out another guard. "Riza! I'm gonna get some answers out these guys!" He ran the rest of the way up the steps and grabbed one of the unconscious guards, lifting him by the collar and staring him in the face. "Hey, you!" he snapped, slapping the guard across the face and bringing him back to semi-consciousness. "Where's Roumsey?"

"Vidina, back off!" I yelled, pulling at his arm.

He shoved me off. "Not until I get some answers!" He turned his attention back on the guard. "Where is he? Tell me damn it!"

I grabbed Vidina's shoulder and pulled harder this time, pulling him to face me and making him drop the guard, and gave him my hardest slap. "Snap out of it! Do you see what's going on around us? You're going to get yourself killed!"

Vidina looked at me… and slowly sighed with resignation. Finally, I was getting through to him. Then he turned his eyes behind me to my left. "What's _he_ doing here?"

I turned to look at Jorin standing behind me. "You know, that's a good question. Is there a reason you're still following me?"

"I figure wherever you go is where the best action is gonna be," he smirked.

"Why don't you go find somebody to rob already and stop bothering me?"

"Well since you seem to need saving every five minutes, I thought you'd appreciate me hanging around."

_Ooohhh!_ "Vidina, if you really need to vent your aggression with violence, he'd be a fine target."

All of a sudden we heard a loud creak, and the big doors next to us started opening. And then there was Roumsey, stepping up to meet us out of those open doors, with a scowl in place of the oily smile he'd had before. Vidina gripped tight on his blitzball, ready to hurl it hard enough to knock someone's head off, and started to charge. I stepped up in front of him, extending an arm to hold him back.

"Miss Riza," Roumsey's slick voice said, without the same kind of oily tone as before. "I must say, I'm disappointed. When you came to me before, I showed you nothing but civility, and this is how you return it? You rally the Youth League against me, you bring all this chaos down on my city, and now you come barging in unannounced and hostile. I'm afraid, O daughter of Yuna, that you are no longer welcome here. And since I don't imagine that my dismissal alone will be enough to turn you away, then I must remove you forcibly."

With that both felt and heard the footsteps of something really, really big. And heavy. Roumsey stepped to the side, allowing us to see the goliath stomping toward us: a YSLS-Zero. Now I usually pride myself on being a big tough girl who doesn't scare easy, but when that thing came stomping towards me… let's just say it took all the control I had not to wet myself.

It swung a huge stone fist at us and we ducked and scurried back down the steps. The mech came slowly stomping after us. If it were up to me, I would have been all for turning tail and getting as far away from that thing as we could, but Vidina wasn't done being stupid yet. Apparently seeing Roumsey in person had undone the sense I slapped into him.

"Heads up!" he shouted, rearing back and chucking his blitzball—which bounced harmlessly off the mech's stone armor.

In fact, it seemed like all he accomplished was making it mad. Well, I mean he would have if mechs could get mad, but it certainly retaliated. And it retaliated hard. It stepped up and swatted Vidina to the ground with the worst knuckle sandwich you could imagine. I was relieved to hear him groan and see him lift his head off the ground, so at least he was still okay, but his head was going to be hurting like no joke in the morning.

But that still left us with this big beast in front of us with armor that my sword could never hope to get through. "Anybody got any ideas?" I turned my eyes toward Jorin. "If you have some super tricks up your sleeve, this would be a real good time to use 'em!"

"I'm a thief, not a miracle-worker!"

Just as the mech looked like it was preparing to attack again, a sudden blast of water crashed down on it from nowhere, announcing Nadaleen's arrival, followed closely by the others. Paine dashed forward, swinging her sword up in a wide arc that actually staggered the stone-and-metal beast, putting a crack in its armor.

"Good timing, guys!" I cheered, raising the Brotherhood. But just as I was about to leap at the mech, Jorin suddenly put a hand on my arm.

"Hold on," he said, flashing me a mischievous grin… for some reason I was still seeing that grin on his near-perfect face for a few seconds after he had dashed forward. But then I looked up and saw what he was doing… not even I would be crazy enough to do that! He had run up to the mech, dodging its massive fists, and was actually _climbing _up on it. Standing on top of the mech's head… or, well, I guess the YSLS-Zero doesn't have a head, so just standing on top of it, where its fists couldn't quite get to but were certainly trying, Jorin jabbed one of his daggers into the crack Paine had made in its armor, opening it wider.

"Hit it now!" Jorin shouted to me.

I dashed, and with a leap I brought the Brotherhood down on the mech just as Jorin pulled his dagger away. I definitely felt my sword cut through something, and it was enough to jostle the mech and make Jorin fall off the back and roll away.

"Everybody get back!" Camall shouted. When we saw him lowering his goggles and deploying his machine gun, we all dove for cover.

_TATATATATATATATAATATATATATATATAT_

The mech went haywire under the hail of bullets, and steadily we watched as all its main parts began falling off. In a minute the thing had been reduced to just a pile of bits and pieces.

I bent down, placing my hands on my knees to catch my breath, while Camall raised his goggles and stepped up to Vidina, producing a potion for him. "Are you all okay?" Paine asked. I nodded.

"Can someone please explain to me what the thief is doing here?" Farru said. All eyes turned to Jorin.

"I'm still trying to find that out myself," I said, folding my arms.

"What does a guy have to do to be appreciated here?" Jorin said. "Am I the only one who noticed I just helped you all against that thing?"

"How did you get away from Steel Island?" Paine demanded.

"I wouldn't be much of a thief if I didn't know how to pull a quick escape, now would I?"

I marched right up into his face. "How about you give us a straight answer for once?"

"How about you show a little gratitude, princess? I've saved your life at least three times now; don't I even get a 'thank you' kiss?"

No, he was not going to get a "thank you" kiss. He'd have to settle for a "thank you" punch. "Close enough," he shrugged, rubbing his jaw.

"Uh, guys?" Nadaleen said, looking up to the sky. "…What's going on?"

We looked in the direction she was looking, and saw what she was seeing: several giant glowing shapes descending from the sky, not falling but seemingly flying down and taking solid form. And as we looked around us, more giant shapes were popping up at various points around the city. And they were beginning to attack the people. "What are those things?" Jorin said.

"Aeons!" I answered. "_Lots_ of aeons!"


	12. Crashing the Gate

All at once Bevelle had gone from one kind of chaos to a completely different kind. The roaring and screeching forms of aeons had driven the assaulting Youth League forces into a panicked frenzy, laying waste to the cannons and swatting down the Youth League troops. What was worse, I saw aeons we had already faced among them. Yojimbo was down there, and so was Anima. This was insane. Even after we defeated these aeons, they would just get summoned all over again.

"New Yevon's stepping up the game now," Vidina muttered.

"No, wait, look," Farru said. "The aeons are attacking New Yevon too!" At the same time as the ice queen aeon from Macalania smashed a Youth League cannon with a block of ice crashing down from above, a big fiery beast was laying waste to a squadron of New Yevon mechs with its claws.

"What does this mean?" Nadaleen said. "New Yevon isn't responsible for the rogue aeons?"

"If it's not them then who?" said Camall.

"We've got more immediate concerns," Paine said suddenly, looking back behind us. When we turned around, another aeon was appearing through a portal surging with lightning, rearing back on its hooves and braying at us. "Ixion," Paine breathed.

"That's the one that attacked Djose," Camall said.

And now it was attacking us. It leapt at Farru, slashing at him with its curved, crackling horn. Farru attempted to block with his lance, but was staggered back and jolted from a bit of shock. Paine immediately stepped up and drove the aeon back again with a quick upward slash. I followed her up with a slash of my own. I jumped back again when Ixion whipped its head at me, slashing the air in front of me with its horn.

Ixion lowered its head, charging the tip of its horn, and launched a pair of spinning electrical bolts. "Look out!" Farru shouted, ducking out of the way. But the bolts circled around and converged right on their target. Camall staggered and shook from the jolt, dropping to his knees.

"Camall, you okay?" I asked.

"That was less than pleasant," he grunted.

"Nadaleen, use a water spell!" Paine commanded. Nadaleen quietly obeyed, stepping up and thrusting her hands forward. The jewels on her gauntlets lit up with a blue glow, and the aeon was battered under a pounding deluge. Camall sprang to his feet and charged, bringing his spinning blades to the aeon's neck. Ixion reared its head back in response, and began bringing its horn down in a retaliatory slash, which Paine jumped in to block with her sword.

Jorin dashed at the aeon, slashing it across the side with his daggers and smoothly dodging away from its counterattack in a single move. While its attention was on Jorin, Vidina introduced the broad side of its face to his twist shot, and Farru gave it a taste of the pointy end of his lance. And once I gave it one more good slice, Ixion finally dropped to its knees and began to fade.

"Glad that's over," Nadaleen said.

"Depends on what you mean by 'over,'" Camall put in, looking back out over the city that was still in total chaos with aeons running amok.

"We should do something to help those people down there," Farru said.

"What do you suggest we do?" said Paine. "Take on all of those aeons ourselves?"

"It looks like they're holding they're own to me," I said. As much as the aeons were tearing into both the Youth League and New Yevon, neither side was going down without a good fight.

"I don't think there's any need to stay here any longer," Nadaleen said. "I think we've done what we can, and we should get out of here now."

"I gotta say, I'm with her," I said. "I don't see what more we can do here now."

"All right," Paine sighed. "Camall, signal Murran to pick us up."

"Hold on," Farru said suddenly, "where's Vidina?"

All of us whirled around. Vidina was gone. Again. When we looked back far enough, we spotted the back of him disappearing through the big doors Roumsey had appeared through before. "He's going for Roumsey," Paine said. "Again."

"I'm gonna nail his feet to the floor!" I swore, taking off after him.

I was more than halfway to those doors when someone shouted "Get down!" and a body dove on me, pinning me to the ground as a big, bird-like aeon swooped over me, its talons raking the air. Fortunately it seemed more focused on the New Yevon mechs that were popping up than on me. Which left me to be more focused on the fact that Jorin was on top of me _again_.

"Get off me," I grunted, shoving him off and standing up. "Why do you keep jumping on me?"

"Because you keep attracting danger like a magnet," he said. "I could always just let you lose your head. I'm sure it would make you that much prettier."

I snarled at him. "As soon as I get Vidina, I am going to kick your ass!"

I turned and hurried through the doors, entering into a huge, over-decorated round chamber with a spiraling stairway along the wall going several stories up, which I spotted Vidina already way above me on. I cupped my hands around my mouth and shouted up to him, "Vidinaaaaaaaa!" He didn't even slow down.

Sighing, I began moving to the stairs to head after him. I had gone up all of two steps when the stairs beneath me shook suddenly, and then all but the few steps I was on slanted down to a smooth path. Looking around to try to figure out what in Spira was going on, I found Jorin behind me with his thumb on a button on the rail. He pushed the button, and the steps we were on, now a platform on a slide, began speeding upward along the spiraling path.

And once we were up a few stories, I began hearing Vidina's voice making the long scream of someone who was falling. He was sliding down the stairway that had turned to a slide beneath his feet, and he was sliding right toward us. Jorin and I both caught him as he landed on our platform that continued speeding upwards.

"Problem solved," Jorin grinned.

I grimaced up at him. "There had to be a better way you could've done that."

"It was definitely the easiest. And besides, it was fun."

"Whatever, just turn this thing around and get us out of here."

"Sorry, we have to wait for it to reach the top before we can turn it around."

"That works for me," Vidina said.

"Vidina, you've got to get a grip!" I said. "What we need to do is get out of here and talk things over!"

"The only one I want talking is Roumsey! I'm not leaving until we put the squeeze on him!"

Almost on cue, the platform reached the top, bringing us to a short hallway before a set of doors. Vidina immediately sprang to his feet and dashed for it, despite my protest of "Vidina, stop!"

Vidina threw those doors and angrily shouted, _"Roumseeeyyyy!"_

Roumsey was at a window looking out over the carnage, and whirled around to face us as we entered. "I've given you too little credit, it seems. You're harder to remove than I thought."

"I want to know where my parents are!" Vidina demanded.

"As do we all," Roumsey smirked.

"Just tell us one thing," I said. "Are you the one summoning the aeons?"

"Me?" Roumsey said a little too innocently. "You think I would bring all this down on my city and my followers?"

"That wasn't a denial," Jorin said.

Roumsey looked at Jorin and furrowed his brow. "Who is this ruffian?"

"As much as I'd like to know that myself, he's right, you know," I said. "Why don't you give us a straight answer?"

"What I will give you is a final warning," said Roumsey. "Leave now, or I will be forced to deal with you myself."

"Deal with this!" Vidina shouted, rearing back and hurling his blitzball.

In a flash, Roumsey whipped out an ornamental staff, knocking the blitzball back. As Vidina caught the ball again, Roumsey gripped the staff in both hands, brandishing it as a weapon. "So be it. I had hoped it would not come to this." And then in the blink of an eye he was on Vidina. There was an audible snap as his staff flashed in a deadly arc, knocking Vidina to the floor.

"Vidina!" I shouted—just a split second before Roumsey whirled on me, knocking me back the same way. I don't know what that staff of his was made of, but I can tell you getting hit with it stung like you wouldn't believe.

Jorin dashed at Roumsey, who deftly parried each thrust of the thief's daggers before dodging to the side. I sprang at him, bringing my sword down to meet his staff that he whipped up to block me with a speed I wouldn't have believed. But at least it gave Vidina the opening to throw his blitzball again, this time succeeding in striking Roumsey in the face. There was something satisfying in hearing him grunt from the impact and seeing him stagger back.

Jorin took the moment while he was dazed to dash for him again, but Roumsey recovered surprisingly fast. While he didn't manage to block Jorin completely, he did parry him enough that all he suffered from the attack was a tear in his big, baggy sleeve. Roumsey responded instantly by spinning around, striking Jorin on the back and knocking him to the floor.

I moved to attack again, but Roumsey quickly dodged away from my slash. And standing a few feet away from me, before I even had time to gain a second wind, Roumsey twirled his staff once—and the pointed bottom tip of it extended to close the distance between him and me in an instant. That thing stung even worse than his last attack, but it retracted instantly after jabbing me. At first I thought all he'd succeeded in doing was pissing me off, but as I tried to heft my sword and charge again, I realized he'd done way more than that. My muscles locked into place. I froze in mid-stance, totally unable to move.

"Riza!" Vidina shouted. Then he turned his angry gaze on Roumsey. "What did you do to her?"

"Worry about your own fate," Roumsey said, putting his staff hand and his empty hand together in front of him, and then pointing his staff at Vidina with a hard thrust—and Vidina was jolted with a thunder spell. And all I could do was watch.

Jorrin made a lunge for him, striking low with one dagger. Roumsey quickly brought his staff down to block, but Jorin took advantage of having two blades, slashing upward with his other one. Roumsey dodged back, but not very well. He brought a hand up to touch the cut that had appeared on his face, his fingers coming away with blood on them. The eyes that looked up at Jorin then were not happy.

Roumsey threw a fire spell that Jorin just barely managed to roll away from, and not without an "Ouch!" from touching the edges of the flame. And still Roumsey was quick enough to turn and swat away the blitzball that Vidina threw at him, and then bolt forward and whack him down before Vidina could even catch it again.

And then Roumsey turned his eyes toward me, while I stood paralyzed and helpless. He waved his staff, about to throw a spell at me, when Jorin stepped in, going for Roumsey's gut. Roumsey blocked one slash, but then Jorin came in on the other side not with a slash, but hitting him with the butt of the dagger. Roumsey grunted from the blow, and swung at Jorin, but the thief ducked and rolled away, coming up behind me.

Suddenly I felt a pinprick at the back of my neck as Jorin jabbed me with something. I tried to turn and look at him—and was surprised to find I actually could. My muscles were still stiff, but I was moving. Roumsey looked dumbfounded, looking to his belt. "What?"

Jorin held up the ampoule he'd just poked me with that he snatched off of Roumsey. "Sorry," he grinned at the praetor. "Sticky fingers."

"Then I shall have to remove them," Roumsey fumed. But I was feeling better now, and I wanted to make him feel bad. So just as Roumsey started to move on Jorin, I twirled forward, bringing my sword around in a side slash. I felt the satisfying yield of my blade hitting flesh, and the even more satisfying sight of that spot on his green robe turning red. Roumsey staggered back, clutching his wound and falling to one knee.

"That looks like it hurts," I taunted him.

"We want some answers now," Vidina said.

The three of us stood over the praetor, who looked up at us—and grinned. "It would seem you have me beaten. Surely any sane man would concede defeat now. I suppose then that I must be insane." With that, Roumsey raised his staff and slammed the butt down on the floor, triggering a blinding flash of light. I shielded my eyes and shook my head, and when the spots cleared, Roumsey was gone.

"No!" Vidina shouted, rushing to the spot where Roumsey had just been, looking all around. _"No!"_

I sighed hard. "Vidina, let's just go."

"No! We had him!"

"We'll get him again later. Let's get out of here!"

I ended up having to pull Vidina by the arm at first, but he was walking on his own by the time we got back to the sliding platform. Jorin hit the button again and we started down, while I clutched at the wound on my shoulder from where Roumsey had paralyzed me, and pulled a potion from my pocket and took a sip.

"I didn't know you knew how to cure paralysis drugs," I commented to Jorin.

"You'd be surprised what I know how to do, klutz," he grinned. "I'd be happy to teach you… if you asked me real nice."

I rolled my eyes. "Blow me."

I suddenly started to wonder why no one else had followed us in here. What was keeping everyone else from going after Vidina too?

As soon as we emerged outside again I got my answer: they were being held up by a massive winged aeon with a powerful serpentine body and a tail that looked just as capable as its fists of shattering boulders. Could this day get any worse?

"Riza! Vidina!" called an exhausted and beaten Paine, supporting her weight with her sword—just as the aeon was about to punch at her again.

"Look out!" Vidina shouted, rearing back and throwing his Super Cannon Shot. The shot had the desired effect, knocking the aeon in the head and getting its attention off Paine, but also had the undesired effect of turning its attention toward us. It clenched its fists, conjuring four dark balls of energy, which went flying to strike the ground. We all scattered to dodge the blasts that flew up around us.

Nadaleen hit the aeon with the strongest fire spell she could manage, and Camall slashed his blade wheel across its belly. Farru charged in to attack, but was swatted away by a crushing punch from the aeon's huge fist. Nadaleen was instantly by his side, picking him up off the ground.

"We are so not in any shape for this," I said. After the beatings we'd all taken already, this was the last thing we needed.

But luckily that was when the first thing we needed showed up. The _Explorer_ came roaring in over our heads, showering the huge aeon with its missiles. Wow, does Murran have good timing.

After only the first salvo, the aeon started fading. As I watched, I started to realize it didn't look like it was beaten; it wasn't dropping to its knees or collapsing at all. It was just fading away while it stood still looking strong. In fact, as I looked around I noticed that _all_ the aeons were disappearing. There was no warning, no reason, no sign that they'd accomplished anything in particular. They were just vanishing.

"Well now that's just weird," Jorin said.

The airship lowered down, and its hatch opened. I could not get into it fast enough. We climbed aboard and made our way up to the bridge where Murran was waiting for us. "Murran, let's go," I said.

"Go where?"

"Away from here."

Murran nodded, and gave the order. The airship lifted off and took off into the sky.

I looked around the bridge at the others, all of them sporting visible injuries, all of them worn and tired. Vidina looked the worst of all, clenching his jaw and his fists. I'd never seen him so frustrated.

"Um, excuse me," Murran said, "but it looks like we've picked up an extra passenger."

All of our eyes turned to the back of the bridge, where Jorin was standing. It was like he'd just mixed himself in with us without anyone asking, to the point of following us onto the airship. And he wasn't even trying to hide this time. "What _are_ you doing here anyway?" Farru asked. "Are you looking for something else to steal?"

"I'm just here to look after princess klutz here," Jorin said. "From what I've seen, she needs all the help she can get."

Oh, did my blood start boiling then. Growling, I started to charge at him, but Paine and Camall grabbed me by the arms and held me back. "Let me at him!" I barked. "I'm gonna use his head for a blitzball!"

"He _has_ helped us," Nadaleen said. "Especially you, Riza."

"And in any case, we're already airborne, so it's too late to drop him off now," Paine said. "I suppose he's earned the benefit of the doubt."

"Thank you," Jorin nodded. "Now if you'll all excuse me, I'm gonna find something to drink."

As Jorin turned and exited the bridge, Paine and Camall let go of me, while I stood there fuming through my teeth. "We could all use some rest," Paine said. "We'll wait for tomorrow to decide where we go from here."

The others started walking off the bridge. I stood rooted right where I was. Paine wanted me to rest? With _him_ on board? Not likely.


	13. The Roguish Thief

That night I dreamed about Jorin. I couldn't even escape him while I slept.

_I was back home in Besaid, on the beach. I looked out over the endless blue sea, enjoying the peace of being totally free. No one was there telling me what to do, nor was there anything I needed to do. I had no worries, no responsibilities, nothing on my shoulders._

_Then I heard voices behind me. "You really don't care?" That was Vidina's voice._

"_You're just going to let go?" That was Farru's._

_I turned around, seeing the two of them standing behind me on the beach. "What?"_

"_Are you gonna forget about them?" Vidina pointed out to the sea._

_When I looked ahead of me again, my mom and dad were standing out on the water, just floating there, not falling in. And they were calling for me. "Mom! Dad!"_

_I moved to jump in the water and start swimming to them, but someone pulled me back. It was him. "Better not."_

_Then I looked to my parents again—and started to panic. The aeon from before, Bahamut, was rising out of the sea behind my parents. I screamed for them to turn around, but the aeon grabbed them, and splashed back down, throwing up huge waves._

"_You can't help them, klutz," Jorin said._

_Then someone else was standing in front of me. That boy, the one in the purple hooded vest, the one I dreamed about before. "What are you holding onto?"_

That was about when I woke up. The cabin was already empty; apparently I was the last one up. I got out of bed and went to wash up, and was busy putting my hair back in its braid when I came out of the washroom. I stopped to look at the long mirror on the wall as I finished tying my hair—and out of the corner of my eye, spotted the reflection of Jorin leaning against the doorframe that led out to the corridor. "Slept in today, huh klutz?"

I groaned and dropped my hands. "I have a name, you know. And it's not 'klutz.'"

"Whatever you say, princess," he shrugged.

"And it's not 'princess' either."

"Sheesh, are you always such a spoilsport?"

"Are you always such a pain in the ass?"

"Only when I'm awake."

I rolled my eyes, and turned to face him directly, folding my arms. "I'm getting tired of asking this question, so why don't you just answer me straight this time so that I don't have to ask it again: why are you here? Nobody asked you to come with us. _You_ didn't even ask to come with us, you just kind of did. What do you want, besides to push all my buttons?"

Jorin paused, dropping his usual playboy look. "Look, I understand the deal here. Your mom and dad have gone missing, and you want to find them, and that full-of-himself praetor is the prime suspect. I just can't stand to see a pretty girl cry… which is ironic, since I've been known to make it happen."

"You don't say."

"I just figured you could use an extra set of eyes looking for things. And if I managed to score some merchandise to hawk for some nice gil along the way, that'd be okay too."

"So at the end of it all, you are out for yourself."

He shrugged again. "I'm a thief. Selfish kind of comes with the job. But that doesn't mean I can't make your life easier."

"Easier? You think you're making my life easier?"

Jorin raised an eyebrow, and began striding over to the beds. "As I recall, you'd be dead several times now if it wasn't for me. Why is that so hard for you to admit?" he asked as he flopped down on one of the beds.

_Because I hate owing my life to someone I can't stand,_ I thought, but I didn't say that out loud. I didn't say anything out loud, actually. I just kind of stood there, looking at him, totally silent.

"Wow, that's real illuminating."

I snorted in annoyance, and began marching toward the door… and then I stopped. Like it or not, this guy wasn't going anywhere. For whatever reason, he'd opted to stick to us like glue, and the others had opted to let him. Somehow, I was going to have to learn to tolerate him.

So I sighed, and then went to sit down on the next bed. After a long pause I finally lifted my head and looked at him. "So… how'd you get the scar?"

"Oh, suddenly you're interested?"

I scowled at him. "I'm just trying to make conversation, but if that's too much to ask…"

"I'd have thought it was too much to ask of _you_. If what I've seen so far is any sign of your capacity for gratitude, you can't be much of a people person."

"Maybe I'm just not much of a _you_ person," I growled, getting up and again starting to march for the door.

"It was a guard."

I stopped and turned around. "What?"

"The scar. It was a guard."

"What happened?"

"I was pulling a job, making a getaway. A guard tried to stop me. I got away from him, but he got me good with his blade. I still managed to hawk the merchandise. Made a pretty fat pile off of that one."

"You're really proud of being a thief, aren't you?"

"What can I say, I'm a rebel."

"And that means you have to steal?"

"Do you always do what you're told, princess?"

"Would you stop calling me 'princess?'"

"Well do you?"

I didn't answer him right away. He grinned at my silence. "You don't, do you?" he said. "You're a rebel too, aren't you?"

"The last thing I ever stole was Vidina's blitzball when I was six," I said.

"But you don't like playing by the rules any more than I do. So we have that in common."

"Hey, why don't you stop pretending you know anything about me? Just because I'm Yuna's daughter doesn't mean you know my life story."

"I don't have to pretend. You've told me plenty. Maybe not in so many words, but you've told me."

"Oh yeah? Like what?"

"Let me guess: you like running away from home, right? You like to get away from your parents, so they can't boss you around?"

I fell silent. He was more perceptive than I gave him credit for. "Not always," I said weakly.

"No, not always," he said. "Sometimes you run away in order to get away from the publicity. It's not easy having a famous mom, is it?"

I paused again. "Well what would you know about that, anyway?"

"Absolutely nothing. I never knew my parents. They died a long time ago."

Up until that point, I'd felt annoyance, anger and revulsion toward Jorin. This was the first time I felt sympathy toward him. "I'm sorry," I said, surprised to find I actually meant it. "Was it Sin?"

"Yeah. So you know, I get by however I can. I go here and there, I steal stuff and I sell it. I do the things people tell me I'm not supposed to. Just like you, klutz."

After hesitating for a moment, I went and sat back down. "The first time I ran away from my village… I was nine years old. I knew I wasn't supposed to leave the village alone, because there was always a danger from fiends. I was really just doing it because I knew I wasn't supposed to. I went down to the beach, where there was nobody else around. And I climbed up the rocks, up on top of a cliff. I got to the top, and walked to the edge and looked out over the sea…"

I paused and looked up at him, part of me unable to believe I was about to tell him the next part. "I took off all my clothes, and I jumped into the sea butt naked from twenty feet up. I did all that because I knew my mom and dad wouldn't like it. And every time I've run away since then, I think that's been part of it. I do it just because my parents tell me not to."

"You still like to swim naked?" Jorin grinned.

I snorted, rolling my eyes away from him in annoyance. But then slowly my eyes turned back to him, and a smirk crept into my face. "…When I can get away with it," I finally admitted.

"You'll have to remember to invite me next time."

"Dream on, buster," I scoffed, folding my arms.

"Kind of ironic, you know."

I looked at him curiously. "What is?"

"You always tried so hard to get away from your parents, just so that you could. Now they're the ones that are gone, and you're whole world's falling apart."

I stood up, giving him a less-than-pleasant look. "You know, you've got some things to learn about tact, mister."

"Oh, and I suppose you're going to teach me, miss can't-even-muster-a-'thank-you-for-saving-my-life?'"

"I'd be happy to teach you… if you asked me real nice," I smirked, pleased with myself at throwing his words back at him.

"Now where have I heard that before?" Jorin mused.

"Some jackass said that to me yesterday," I said, before turning to begin walking away.

I was halfway to the door when he said, "I can be a nice guy, you know."

I turned around, putting my hands on my hips. "Oh yeah? Prove it!"

"What if I said I had a present for you?"

I looked at him incredulously. "A present?"

Jorin stood up, and pulled something from a pouch on his belt which he held up for me to see as he strode towards me. It was a crystal necklace, and a particularly expensive-looking one at that. I held myself back from telling him I thought it looked beautiful. Instead I just sighed and asked, "Who did you steal that from?"

"Eh, don't worry about that. It was wasted on her anyway. Let's see how it looks on you."

He gently turned me around to face the mirror, and reached around to put it around my neck. I found myself getting a tingle as his fingers brushed my skin. He fastened it at the back of my neck, and then put his hands on my shoulders and leaned in to look at my reflection with me. "Well, you may be a klutz, but at least you look good." I had to admit, I agreed. It was tight-fitting enough that there wasn't much risk of it catching on something with all the jumping around I was likely to do, but loose-fitting enough that it was still comfortable. And besides that, it was just plain beautiful.

"And hey," he said, "it brings out your right eye." That's my blue one, by the way. My left one is the green one. I'm the opposite of my mom.

"So, have I earned a thank you yet?" Jorin whispered in my ear. I didn't answer. I was too preoccupied with the goose bumps I was getting from feeling his breath on my ear. Suddenly I couldn't stop staring at the reflection of his brown eyes looking back at me in the mirror. Almost involuntarily, my hand started coming up to the hand he had on my shoulder, and my fingers lightly touched his…

"Everybody to the bridge!" Murran's voice echoed over the intercom.

Jorin slowly pulled away from me. "Come on, klutz." And he left.

I didn't follow him right away. I stayed there, staring at myself and the necklace on me. My head was still spinning a little.

I don't actually remember getting on the elevator, but I remember arriving on the bridge. Most of the others looked… lost, for lack of a better word. "All right, I'm here," I said. "So do we have any ideas?"

My question was answered with a whole lot of silence.

"It looks like we've run out of leads to follow," Paine said. "From what we've seen now, either Roumsey is acting without the knowledge of the rest of New Yevon, or New Yevon has nothing to do with what's happening."

"But they gotta have something to do with it," Camall put in. "Those aeons didn't say 'New Yevon' just for giggles."

"Well I for one do not want to go back to Bevelle," Nadaleen pouted.

"Then it looks like we're out of ideas," Farru said.

I noted how oddly silent Vidina was being. He leaned back against the wall with his arms folded, and I saw the frustration bubbling beneath his face.

"So what _are_ we gonna do?" I said.

And again, nobody could find anything to say.

Finally Nadaleen spoke up: "I want to go home."

"What?" Farru said.

"I don't mean to belittle what's happening here, but… well, since nobody can think of anything, I just… I need to see my parents. With everything that's going on, I just need to know that they're okay."

"And of course you also need to let mom and dad meet your new boyfriend," I smirked.

Nadaleen looked to Farru and grinned. "There's that."

Most of us could hear what Nadaleen wasn't saying: she felt guilty about asking to see her family when Vidina's and mine were still missing. But I don't think any of us blamed her for what she was asking.

"Murran," Paine said, "take us to Kilika."

Murran nodded and gave the order. As people started moving around, Vidina moved away from the wall—and stopped suddenly when he got a look at me. "Uh, hey Riza," he said, staring straight at my necklace, "what's that?"

I put a hand on my necklace, and glanced toward Jorin, who only smirked proudly at me. "Nothing," I answered a little bashfully. And if you know me at all by now, I don't think I need to tell you that I don't do bashful.


	14. Nadaleen's Homecoming

I'd never been to Kilika before, and I have to admit, it looked like a cool place to live. I didn't think it was quite as picturesque as Besaid, but I liked the way the village was built out on the water. I mean hey, I love the water. I started to imagine what it would be like if I lived here; instead of having to leave the village and walk all the way down to the beach or the lagoon when I wanted to go for a swim, it would be as simple as just jumping off whatever section of the docks I happened to be standing on. Oddly, from our aerial view of the village, I didn't see anybody doing that. I couldn't imagine why.

Nadaleen usually tended to hang towards the back of our group, but this was her home, so when the airship landed she led us off, with Farru close behind her. I hung back just to take Jorin by the arm and give one stern warning to his face: "Don't steal anything."

"Yes ma'am," he grinned in such a way that I couldn't tell if he was sincere or not.

"I mean it," I said, deciding to reinforce the point. "You steal one thing, and I'm gonna dropkick you off the airship over the ocean."

"Wow, the princess is harsh. But fair enough. I swear on my honor as a thief I'll leave this place untouched."

I hesitated, but decided I was going to trust that. I let go of his arm.

Shortly after we got off the airship, someone recognized Nadaleen and welcomed her home, and when she asked if her parents were in their hut he told her they were. We followed her to a hut elevated on the upper level that stood out from the others by having a gaudy velvet curtain over the doorway. "Mom?" she called as we approached.

Almost instantly a loud response came from inside: "Nadaleen?" A second later a dark-haired, bronze-skinned, fiery-eyed woman burst through the curtain and dashed to embrace her daughter. "Where in Spira have you been?" Dona demanded, yanking Nadaleen inside the hut as we followed. "You were supposed to come home right after you left Bevelle! We've been hearing stories about you and about Kimahri and Yuna! Why didn't you come home right away? Why did we have to hear about what you were doing from rumors?" Almost without taking a breath, let alone giving Nadaleen time for one, Dona looked up and shouted to the ceiling, "Barthello, get down here!"

Immediately a big muscle-bound lug came running down the stairs. "Nadaleen!"

"Hello, Daddy," Nadaleen grinned.

"Daddy missed you, Nadaleen," he said in the sweetest way a big beast was capable of, pulling her into a bear hug.

"I… I missed you too, Daddy," she rasped, struggling to breathe in his embrace.

"Now explain to us where you've been," Dona demanded.

"Uh, hi!" I said, holding up a hand to call for their attention. "I'm Riza, I'm her friend, maybe you've heard of me?"

"Yes, of course, you're Yuna's daughter. Maybe you can answer my question? Where have you been dragging my daughter?" I didn't exactly feel like this woman had the world's highest opinion of me.

"Dona," Paine put in, stepping forward, "have you heard about what happened on Mt. Gagazet?"

Dona sighed. "Yes, yes. Yuna and several others disappeared and the lot of you are looking for them; I don't see what that has to do with my daughter. I was resistant enough to let her go to Bevelle in the first place; I didn't want her tramping all over Spira looking for trouble with you."

"Mom," Nadaleen spoke up, "I was there when they brought Kimahri's body out, and I was there when Lady Yuna and the others disappeared. I'm part of this whether you want me to be or not, and I didn't come back to ask for your permission."

"Well I wouldn't give it," Dona started fiercely… but then sighed, putting one hand on her forehead and another on her hip. "But, it's my own fault for raising you to be independent. I suppose I can't stop you."

Nadaleen grinned. "Thanks, Mom." Her eyes turned down a little uncomfortably then, and flicked briefly to Farru. "Um…" she started, looking up at her mother cautiously. "There is…"

"What?"

"There's something else I wanted to talk to you about." She turned her eyes to Farru, and opened her hand invitingly. Farru stepped up and took her hand, and Nadaleen pressed herself to his shoulder. "This is Farru. He's, um…" She let her sentence dangle, hoping her meaning would be clear enough.

Apparently it was. Comprehension slowly dawned on her parents. "Nadaleen!" Barthello gasped.

"Perhaps the rest of us should step outside," Paine suggested.

Unanimous head nods from all of us, Farru and Nadaleen included, confirmed that we all agreed. "We'll be right outside," Vidina said as we exited, leaving the two lovebirds alone with the parents.

As soon as we got a short distance from the hut, I turned to the others and asked a question that had been burning in me from the moment Dona emerged from that curtain: "How does a woman like that spawn such a mellow child?"

"I'm guessing the big lunkhead has something to do with it, ya?" Vidina said.

"So," Camall said quizzically, "you combine someone who's all fire and brimstone in pretty wrapping with a codependent muscle-brain, and you get… Nadaleen?"

"Looks like it," I said, though by now I was only half paying attention to everyone. I was starting to notice the people who had started to notice me. I guess it was too much to hope that someone wouldn't recognize me and people wouldn't start treating me like they always do. _Sigh…_ _well, time for the daughter of the High Summoner to face her adoring public._

We spent a while after that meeting and mingling with people, and getting more sympathy for me and my mom than I could stand. I think I lasted through about the first ten people giving me "I'm very sorry about your mother, has there been any news?" before I started to roll my eyes and groan. Eventually Farru emerged from the family hut, and Vidina and I stepped up to him. "So, how'd it go?" I asked.

"Well, Dona pretty much tried to get me to tell her my life story," he said. "She asked a lot of questions about how I handled fiends and how I was at dealing with trouble, and every time I gave her an answer she wanted me to elaborate and give her an example. Just every kind of question she could think to ask about how safe I could keep Nadaleen."

"What about Barthello?" Vidina asked.

"He either tried to kill me or he was welcoming me to the family. I couldn't tell." We all laughed at that.

After Nadaleen emerged, we spent a few hours meeting people and enjoying some fresh Kilika food. I constantly kept watch on Jorin out of the corner of my eye, not yet trusting him enough to let him out of my sight for more than a few seconds. At one point I was picking up some fruits from a vendor when I looked at him leaning against a post, staring off into space, looking contemplative. "You trying to plan how to swipe something without me noticing?" I jabbed at him.

"Not at the moment, though that has crossed my mind a couple times," he said with a little smirk. "I was actually thinking about something else. This island has a Temple of Yevon, doesn't it?"

"What, you want to steal something from the temple?"

"You're not stealing anything from the temple," Nadaleen declared as she passed him.

"Would you ladies relax for a second? I actually was thinking of something else. In fact…" He stepped away from the post started gesturing for the others to approach. "Hey, motley crew, come here a second. Good-looking guy has something to contribute."

I'm pretty sure I was mirroring the curious looks everyone else was giving him as they approached. "This ought to be good," Farru mused.

"He's been saying something about the temple," I said.

"What's he want to steal?" Camall asked.

"Hey! Stop assuming I'm looking to steal something! …I'm sure there's plenty of stuff in there I'd love to make off with, but I promised princess klutz I wouldn't take anything, and I don't break my promises. I'm actually looking to help, if the bunch of you are willing to listen."

For just the briefest second I allowed myself a tiny smile at the thought that I might actually be starting to like that jerk before Paine folded her arms and muttered, "Would you get to the point?"

"That bunch of missing people you found before, weren't they in a Temple of Yevon?"

"The Temple at Macalania is a lot different than the one here," Paine said. "People still actually go into this one."

"But nobody goes into the Chamber of the Fayth, do they?" Jorin said. "And isn't that were you found the other people?"

All of us started looking at each other. "This might actually be worth a look," Camall said. "Not bad, clepto-boy."

"Thanks, widget-head."

We made our way into the Kilika jungle. I was honestly surprised at the number of fiends we ran into there. I mean, Kilika was practically the neighbor of Besaid, and there weren't any fiends on Besaid anymore, right? So why should Kilika still have so many?

But at least they were all smaller, weaker fiends, and easily dealt with. I have to admit, though, Jorin started proving himself pretty handy in a pinch. The way he cut through the fiends we encountered was actually pretty impressive.

Still, we made it to the temple without a lot of trouble. I liked the way Kilika Temple was dressed up, with the long flight of stairs leading up to it—okay, that part I could've lived without, actually, but the rest of it, with the big open plaza that had a lot of people gathered. Nadaleen got a few more greetings from the people there, as did I. "Welcome home Nadaleen," "Hope you find your mother Riza," blah blah blah.

We entered the temple, where Paine made the announcement that unsettled several of the people greeting us inside: "We're going to check out the Chamber of the Fayth."

Most of the people in the temple went uncomfortably silent at that point. "That chamber is supposed to be sacred," someone said.

"Maybe twenty years ago," Farru said.

"We found people in the Chamber of the Fayth in Macalania," I explained, "so now we're checking it out here."

People began murmuring among themselves. "Well," an old woman said, "if anyone can be allowed in the Chamber of the Fayth, I suppose the daughter of High Summoner Yuna can."

I looked at the others, and shrugged. Not exactly the argument I had in mind, but it would do.

We took the lift down and made our way through the Cloister of Trials, before we got to the room before the Chamber of the Fayth, where a few people had gone ahead of us and were gathered now. "The Chamber won't open," someone said. "The door remains sealed." Vidina stepped up to the door to the Chamber, and as they said, it stayed shut. Obviously not like the one in Macalania.

"Does this mean there's nothing in that one?" Nadaleen asked.

"Can't know that until we get in and take a peek," Camall said.

I started stepping up to the door slab. "Maybe we can pry it open," I started to say—

The door opened.

Everyone stood mute. "What just happened?" Farru said.

"It opened for the Summoner's daughter!" someone declared.

"I think he's right, Riza," Vidina said. "The door opened when you got close."

"But why me?" I said, then quickly amended, "Wait, don't answer that," before anyone could say "Because you're the High Summoner's daughter." As if I didn't have people reminding me of that all the time. But was that really the reason?

"Let's have a look," Paine said, proceeding inside.

…Well, the Chamber of the Fayth was a big disappointment. There was nothing in there. There were the markings of Yevon on the walls and the dead statue in the floor, and a big gaping hole down below that had nothing but blackness. Nothing else. Just a room. "Well, Jorin, this is really something," I muttered. "Thank you so much for wasting our time."

"At least now you know," Jorin shrugged. "At least you can't say you didn't try."

"Well then why don't we try throwing you down that hole and see how long it takes for us to hear a splat? As long as we're tossing out ideas."

"I'd be happy to jump into a dark hole with _you_, princess. It'll give us some privacy, hmm?"

"All right, that's enough, you two," Paine said. "If there's nothing to find here, we should go somewhere else."

"Yeah, let's get out of here," Vidina said, already turning to leave.

"Wait," Nadaleen said suddenly, "something's happening!"

All of our heads turned to where she was looking. All of a sudden hundreds of pyreflies had begun flooding out of that hole in the wall, and they began floating past us, into the chamber outside. Looking through the doorway, we saw them starting to form into a shape—and the people there began to scream and run.

Now here's a question I've been asking myself a lot since then: if there had been any other direction we could have gone, would we still have run _toward_ the thing that had people running in terror? The part that really scares me is that I think we probably would. Because that's what this journey had done to us. We just couldn't stop moving toward trouble.

We rushed out into the next room, were the massive shape of a creature was forming; a four-legged beast with a long tail, wings made of a bunch of separate tendrils, and as it turned stomping around to face us, we saw a pair of curved tusks encircling its lower face that looked anything but natural.

"Is that an aeon?" Vidina said.

"No," said Paine, "It's not. It's a Sanctuary Keeper."

"What is it doing here?" Camall said.

"Not caring!" I shouted.

And neither was anyone else as the beast's tail came swinging around to sweep at us. Jorin and I jumped and backflipped over it, and Paine just barely managed to duck and block with her sword, but nobody else was so lucky. Vidina, Farru and Nadaleen were knocked reeling to the floor, and Camall actually hit the wall.

As soon as my feet hit the floor and the creature turned to face us again, I rushed in to attack, slashing it across its armored face. At the same time, Jorin struck with both daggers on the other side of its face. It roared and shook its head from side to side, its tusks forcing us to back away. Nadaleen lashed out with an upper level fire spell, blasting the beast with a fierce inferno, and Camall got to his feet to bring his blade wheel to its shoulder.

Suddenly its wings extended and began vibrating. A bolt of light shot out from each of the tendrils of its wings, arcing down and beginning to rain down on us. What I remember then is a million little bites showering me, accompanied by blinding flashes and loud booms. Even after the raining pain stopped, everything was still a blur. My ears were still ringing and my eyes were filled with nothing but spotty light. The next thing I remember was feeling something hit me, and it hit me hard, knocking the wind out of me as I hit the floor. It took me a second as I tried to pick myself up to realize the beast had swatted us with its tail again, and this time it wasn't letting anyone avoid it.

When my eyes started to clear, I saw Paine recover first and rush in to attack, slashing it across the neck. "Paine, get back!" Camall shouted, rising to one knee and lowering his goggles, deploying his machine gun. After the rain of pain we'd just gotten, the shower of bullets the beast started getting seemed kind of appropriate. The creature staggered under the assault until Camall's clip ran out, which was long enough for the rest of us to get back to our feet and gain our second wind.

And when the hail of bullets proved not enough to finish the creature off, I had another plan prepared. I turned my head and shouted, "Hey, Vidina! Farru! Delta Formation Two!"

They both nodded, acknowledging the attack formation that we'd been planning out over our journey; a variation on the move we'd worked on the flame dragon back at Gagazet. I charged forward, hitting the creature with a barrage of slashes. After a final upward slash, which was both an attack and a signal to Vidina, I flip-flopped back out of his way. Vidina chucked his blitzball, which collided with the beast and ricocheted toward Farru. He was ready for it, spinning around and hitting it with the butt of his lance, launching it back at the beast.

The blitzball hit it again, this time bouncing upward. I leapt into the air, jumping toward Farru, who was waiting for me. He held his lance up horizontally, allowing me to land standing on it, and for him to vault me upward, sending me flying toward the rebounding blitzball. I flipped over in the air, hitting it with my best kick, and launching it like a missile back down at the beast a third time. When it struck it almost sounded like an explosion, causing the beast to rear back and screech with the impact—coming down just as Farru came under it with an upward slash of his lance.

The beast staggered back, slowly collapsing to the ground, and finally beginning to fade.

"Everybody alright?" Paine asked.

"My equipment's a little damaged, but I'm in one piece," Camall said.

"My head's still whistling, but I can stand, ya?" Vidina said.

"What was all that about?" Farru said.

"I'd rather not stick around to find out," I said. "I think we'd better get back to the village before something else shows up."

Everyone agreed, and we headed back through the Cloister of Trials and back into the daylight of the temple plaza.

Which was suddenly empty.

"Hey, where'd everybody go?" Camall said.

"They must have all gone back to the village in the chaos," Nadaleen suggested. I wanted to think she was right, but something was putting a bit of doubt in my head. Something about this was ominously familiar.

We fought our way back through the jungle without much trouble. That is until we started getting closer to the village, and the hairs on the back of my neck started standing on end. I don't know how, but I just _knew_ that something was very wrong.

"Hey," Camall said, "does anybody else smell smoke?"

All of us froze in our tracks. And looking hard along the path ahead of us, I could in fact see a plume of smoke coming from the village. I will never forget the look on Nadaleen's face right at that moment. "No… No!" she shouted, starting to run for the village.

We ran after her, finding her casting water spells to put out the flames that were burning on several of the damaged houses. Here and there, bridges and wharfs were torn up, walls and roofs were caved in.

And all the people were gone.

_Oh, please no,_ I thought. _Not again!_

"Anybody?" Nadaleen called. "Hello? Mom? Dad?" She went running for her family's hut. Farru was the first of us to go running after her. We caught up moments after she rushed inside. We pulled the curtain aside, finding her standing in the middle of the hut with her back to us. Slowly she turned her tear-streaked face to us, and spoke two words:

"They're gone."

And with that she threw herself into Farru's arms and began sobbing against his chest.


	15. Yuna's Spheres

It had happened again. Right when our backs were turned, someone or something had whisked everyone away. And now Nadaleen was in the same position as Vidina and I were.

It was funny; I remembered back in the Thunder Plains, when Nadaleen told me she couldn't pretend to know what I was going through, and that she almost felt guilty knowing that her family was safe and sound. She'd given me a shoulder to cry on then, kind of like the one Farru was giving her now.

She currently knelt on the floor of her family hut in a state of shellshock while Farru held her in his arms, tenderly stroking her head. As much as we were all reeling from what had just happened, as I stepped out of the hut I realized we had a more immediate problem. Our airship was gone. And this wasn't the same as Gagazet, where we could simply walk down the mountain to get somewhere else. Kilika was an island, which would make leaving it considerably harder. Maybe we could use one of the ships and leave the island by sea—

_ZOOM_

Something roared overhead, and I looked up to see the _Explorer_ speeding down toward the docks. Well, so much for that problem… but why were they still here when everyone else was gone? Most of us went running to the docks to meet up with them, and got there just as Muran was stepping out. I was the first to throw him the obvious question: "What happened?"

"I'm not totally sure," Murran said, looking shaken. "It was all chaos. These things… I don't know what they were. They were like these crystal machines flying around, snatching up people everywhere. We tried to fight them off, but every time we shot one of them down another one showed up. And trying to avoid shooting any of the people made it a lot harder, too. When they'd gotten everyone they started flying away; we tried to follow them, but… all of a sudden something hit us. There was this blinding flash… I think we all must have passed out for a few minutes, but when we came to we were a few miles off shore, and the things were gone."

We turned to see Farru and Nadaleen joining us to hear the last parts of Murran's story. She looked like she needed Farru's support even to walk. At least this time we had some idea of how this happened.

Suddenly one of the Al Bhed crewmembers came rushing out of the airship. "Murran!" he called. "Fa zicd kud y comsphere dnyhclecceuh vnul Gippal. Culadrehk'c rybbahat yd Djose!"

"Fryd?" Murran turned and hurried back inside. I wasn't sure exactly what the crewmember had said, but I understood "comsphere," "Gippal" and "Djose," and the urgency in his voice told me the rest.

We followed them inside to the comsphere screen on the bridge, where Gippal's face was being transmitted. "Gippal, what's going on?" Murran said.

"We just got back to Djose," Gippal said, looking half-panicked. "It's deserted! Everyone's gone from here… including Truno!"

"No!" I gasped.

"There too?" Camall said.

"Gippal, the same thing just happened here in Kilika," Paine told him. "Everyone's gone from here, too."

"Gippal, do you know if this has happened anywhere else?" Murran said.

"We're still in touch with our contacts in Luca," Gippal said. "Everything seems fine there."

"Why these places and not there?" Murran thought out loud. "What do Kilika and Djose have that Luca doesn't?"

Oddly it was Jorin who answered: "A Temple of Yevon."

We all looked up at each other, realizing he was exactly right—and suddenly we all had the same terrible thought. "Murran," I said, "we've got to get back to Besaid! Now!"

I prayed I was wrong. The people who didn't come with us to Kimahri's memorial, including Farru's family, had to still be there. Whatever had taken my parents from me couldn't have touched my home too.

But as soon as I saw the damaged huts of the village, the crushing reality hit.

The airship dropped us off as close to the village as it could possibly get. Farru, Vidina and I went running back into the village that had been our home our whole lives—and was now a ghost town. The children who were supposed to be running around playing hide-and-seek, the people who were supposed to be walking with their dogs, the Aurochs who were supposed to be practicing for the blitzball tournament, all of them had vanished.

And Farru had been hurt just like the rest of us. At least he looked like he was keeping it in better.

If anyone was getting emotional at this point it was me. I stood in the village center, and dropped to my knees. It just kept getting worse. Apparently it wasn't enough to simply take our parents from us; they had to take _everyone_ from us. Everything. No one was safe. No place was safe. Nothing we had was sacred.

As it started getting dark, Paine advised we should go back to the airship to sleep, but none of us agreed. Well, except for Camall, but they were still outvoted. Most of us took to spending the night in our respective family huts. Farru and Nadaleen took his hut, looking to spend some time alone together. Jorin consented to sharing the one Paine and Camall were squatting in after I refused to let him share mine. I was so not in the mood to deal with him now.

It felt like it had been a lifetime since I last set foot inside my family hut. In reality it had only been… what, a week? Two maybe? I had completely lost track. The hut had never felt so hollow. So dead. Everything I knew was still here. Mounted on one part of the wall was my mom's staff from her days as a summoner. My dad had all kinds of memorabilia from Luca that he'd gathered over the years from blitzball and sphere break tournaments. They were all I still had of them.

Under my parents' bed, I noticed that old chest that had been there for as long as I could remember. I'd always seen that chest there, but I'd never known what was in it, and until then I'd never wondered either. I don't know what it was; maybe it was the ever-present awful possibility that I might never see them again. Whatever it was, something was compelling me to find out what my parents kept in that chest.

So I knelt down by the bed, pulled the chest out and popped it open. A set of four spheres was displayed inside of it, resting comfortably in their little hollows. I picked up the first sphere and sat down on the bed.

The image that appeared was of Besaid beach, with a huge crowd gathered on it. It looked like there were people from all over Spira there; I'd never seen so many people gathered on the beach at once. Heck, I'd never seen so many people on Besaid at once. The sphere cam panned across the crowd, and now I started to see they were neatly divided with a wide gap going through the middle of the crowd. "Just look at this turnout, ya?" I heard Wakka's voice say.

"It's wonderful," came Lulu's voice. "I'm sure they're honored."

The sphere cam turned to point the other way, coming to focus on Lulu and the baby squirming in her arms. "Is Vidina excited today?" Wakka said.

I finally noticed Rikku standing on the other side of Lulu when she chirped, "I am!"

Wakka turned the sphere cam to the front where everyone seemed to be looking. There was my dad—I barely recognized him looking that young—all dressed up fancy, standing next to a pastor… suddenly I realized what I was watching. "Here she comes," someone said. Everyone's attention turned back the other way. Wakka turned the sphere cam in that direction, and after wobbling it around for a second before zooming in…

I almost started to cry. There was mom, not much older than I am now, being escorted by Kimahri, dressed in her flowing white gown. I'd never seen my mom looking so beautiful. Or so happy. The smile on her face was the brightest I'd ever seen on her.

Kimahri handed her off to my dad, and they gazed into each other's eyes as the pastor ran through the ceremony. And when my dad lifted her veil and bent to kiss her, and her arms came around his neck, everyone erupted into cheers and applause. Most of the time in the past when I'd seen my mom and dad kiss, my impulse was to look away in revulsion. Not this time. This time I couldn't have looked away if I tried. This time it was the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen.

The recording faded then to show the celebration that was held that night in the village around the fire. People danced, people laughed, and the Aurochs lifted up and carried my dad like an MVP. Finally the recording ended, and I put the sphere back and picked up the second one.

This one opened with my mom standing on the hill above the village, looking out over the sea with her back turned to the holder of the sphere cam, who was walking toward her. "This is Jassu with an exclusive, getting an up-close interview with the High Summoner… and her baby," he finished once my mom turned around, and the shape of her belly, where she was carrying me, came into view.

"How's Yuna's baby doing today?" Datto asked.

"Pretty energetic, actually," my mom grinned, stroking her bump.

The sphere cam zoomed in a little too close. "Does baby want to say hi?"

"Hey, why don't you give her some air?" my dad's voice called.

The sphere cam turned to see him coming up the road. "Here comes daddy-to-be! Does he have any words for our viewing audience?"

"Yeah: you guys are supposed to be practicing," he said with a smirk.

"Tidus, leave them alone," my mom said. "They're not bothering me."

Then the recording ended. I moved on to the third sphere.

The scene opened in the village, showing Rikku, Paine, and Lulu holding baby Vidina. I recognized my family hut in the background. Wakka revealed himself again as the one holding the sphere cam when I heard his voice say, "We're here on the big day, about to see the big moment."

"Are you so sure it's over, Wakka?" Lulu said.

"Well we don't hear her screaming anymore," said Paine.

I gulped. Was this what I thought it was?

Rikku was almost running in place. "Oooh, I'm about to pop! How much longer do we have to wait? I wanna go in and see!"

"Breathe, Rikku," Paine said.

A few seconds later the village doctor emerged from the family hut with a proud smile on his face. "You can come in now," he said. "It's a girl."

Yep. This was what I thought it was.

They stepped inside the hut, and there was mom, sitting up in bed, her forehead glistening and her hair stringy from her sweat, cradling little baby me in her arms… I was wrong before. _This_ was the most beautiful my mom had ever looked. And the most happy. And dad sitting next to her didn't look particularly unhappy either. "Hey, guys," he grinned.

"Oh, Yuna, she's beautiful," Lulu said.

The sphere cam moved in to look at my tiny little face peeking out of the bundle I was wrapped in. "It's the moment everyone's been waiting for, ya?" Wakka said. "Say hi to Spira."

My little eyes stayed closed. "I think we're both a little tired for that right now," my mom said.

"Ooh, I just can't believe Yunie's a mommy!" Rikku chirped.

"That's right, Yuna, you are," my dad said, leaning in to kiss mom's forehead.

"Does she have a name yet?" Paine asked.

"No, not yet," said mom.

"I wanna hold her! I wanna hold her!" Rikku said, practically bouncing up and down.

"Okay," mom said, carefully handing me off to Rikku. "Watch her head."

"Hi baby! I'm your auntie Rikku!"

"Well technically—" Paine started.

"Shush!" Rikku cut her off.

Rikku carried me over to Lulu and Vidina. "Hey, Vidina," she said. "I want you to meet your future wife."

"Rikku!" mom gasped.

Vidina reached out his pudgy little arm, and his little fingers brushed my forehead. My eyes opened and looked at him.

And the recording ended.

I didn't put the third sphere back right away. I noticed suddenly that the upper part of my top was wet. And so was my face. This wasn't like me, I thought as I wiped the tears from my face. Yes, what I was watching was beautiful, but I shouldn't have been moved to tears by it. I'm not that gushy.

It wasn't until after watching the fourth sphere that I figured out why I was crying.

This one showed mom sitting alone in the hut, recording the sphere herself. "Hi, Riza," she said, "it's mom. I don't know when you're seeing this… or even why I'm making this sphere. I just felt I had to. Right now as I'm making this you're still only a few months old, and you're out on the beach with your father and some of the other people from the village. They're expecting me to join them soon. I told them I'd be right behind them," she chuckled mildly.

"Maybe it's ten years from now that you're seeing this," she went on. "Maybe it's twenty. If it has, I'm sure you've grown up into a beautiful young woman. It makes me happy to think you didn't have to grow up living in fear the way I did. The way all of Spira did for so long. When I look at you… I understand more than ever what we fought for, when we destroyed Sin. We knew then that we were fighting for Spira's future, but now I realize it was for you, and all the children like you who get to grow up in the world we created.

"I used to think I would have to sacrifice my life in order to renew Spira's hope. But if I had…" She paused, and wiped a tear from her eye. "I did a lot for Spira, as I'm sure you know by now, but you're by far the best thing I've done. I love you, Riza. I'll always love you. And so will your father. Whatever happens to you in your life, I want you to always know that."

"I do know, mom," I said aloud to no one as the recording finished. Instead of putting this sphere back in the chest, I simply dropped it on the floor, and fell face-first onto the bed and let myself cry into the pillow. I understood now why I was crying; the spheres had reminded me what it was that had been taken from me. And no matter what it took, I was going to get it back.

Everyone in our group was thankfully still there when morning came. Camall was a bit late meeting up with the rest of us in the center of the village. When he finally showed up, he announced, "Hey guys, I think I might be on to something."

"Finally, some good news," I said.

"I've been talking with Gippal over the comspheres," he said. "Our buddies in the Machine Faction have been examining those jewels on the people we've found. Gippal thinks they might be receiving some kind of signal. If we can confirm that, and figure out where the signal's coming from, that might lead us somewhere."

"You don't sound so sure," Farru said.

"Well, there's one little bump in the road on that front," Camall said. "No one in the Machine Faction can figure out what kind of signal it's getting, let alone how to find the source."

"I think I know someone who might," Paine said. "I think it's time we paid Shinra a visit."


	16. The Guadosalam Caper

"I think I'll stick around here," Jorin said when our airship touched down at Steel Island. "I get the feeling the Al Bhed won't be too happy to see me."

"I think you're right," Camall smirked. "There's one Al Bhed right here who's already not happy to see you."

"Y'know, that's an interesting point," Vidina grinned. "We just brought him back to where they locked him up. Tell me again why we're not dragging him in with us so they can get it right this time?"

"Because then I'd have to escape and track you down all over again before princess klutz here falls on her head."

I snarled at him. "I'll drop _you_ on your head! Off a tower!"

"Later," Paine said, pushing me by the shoulder. "Shinra's waiting for us."

Shinra was supposed to already be there, having left New Home immediately after receiving Paine's call. I was honestly curious to meet this guy; I'd heard mom and Rikku and Paine talk about him many times, always describing a geeky little whiz kid with an ego that was far bigger than his diminuitive stature. Clearly he'd grown since then, but I hadn't heard much description of him as an adult.

When we stepped into the infirmary on Steel Island, what we found was a man in a respirator mask kneeling next to Rikku's bed, diligently working away at a computer console that was connected to a device hovering over the jewel on Rikku's head. I was somewhat disappointed; I'd been expecting someone with a face.

"Hello, Shinra," Paine said. "Busy as ever?"

"Always," came the muffled voice of the man in the mask who didn't even look up.

_Wow… that was a heartwarming reunion._

"Tell me you've got a miracle," Camall said.

"There's definitely a signal coming to that thing," Shinra said. "I think I've isolated it. I'm working on triangulating its source now."

"How long is that gonna take?" Vidina asked.

"Longer the more everyone keeps asking me."

My curiosity about him was officially sated now. I found myself wondering why Paine and my mom seemed to think so highly of someone so blunt.

"Almost there," Shinra said. "I think… yes, I've got it."

"Where is it?" I asked.

"Guadosalam."

Immediately Vidina turned and started for the door. "Guadosalam. Let's go, ya?"

Farru grabbed onto his shoulder. "Hold it, big guy. How will we know what to look for when we get there?"

"I'll have to come with you," Shinra said, getting up from his seat. "I can monitor it from your airship."

I grinned dryly at that. "Just watch your pockets," I warned him. "There's someone on our airship who's liable to pick 'em."

Actually Jorin was surprisingly well behaved when Shinra came on board. He did threaten to pick Shinra's pockets enough to keep Shinra on his toes, but I'm pretty sure he was just trying to be scary. Of course, I had to throw him my disapproving stares every time he did that, which unfortunately only seemed to encourage him.

When we landed at Guadosalam, Shinra hooked up a signal readout to Camall's equipment so we could home in on whatever it was we were looking for. We entered the caves and began searching, following the signal to its source. It probably would've gone a lot quicker if it weren't for the fact that we kept getting approached by overly friendly Guado wanting to ask us—or, more specifically, me—how the search was going, and on occasion, what was that beeping thing on Camall's arm that we seemed to be so focused on. We tried to keep the explanations minimal, particularly since, as Paine explained it to us, if the signal was coming from here, we didn't know who we could trust.

The signal finally led us to the set of big red double doors at the back of cave that had a pair of guards standing in front of them. "Looks like whatever we're looking for is in there," Camall said.

"I remember that place," said Paine. "That's where the Leblanc Syndicate used to live. They moved in after Maester Seymour died."

"Who lives there now?" Nadaleen asked.

"One way to find out," I said, marching up to the guards.

I barely heard Vidina bark my name before the guards stepped closer together to block my path. "Do you have business with General Valaric?"

"Yeah, I'm Riza, daughter of High Summoner Yuna, and I wanna know who this Valaric guy is!"

"General Valaric is the chief general of New Yevon's guard forces. He reports directly to Praetor Roumsey."

"Now why doesn't that surprise me?" Vidina muttered.

"He's a very busy man," the other guard said. "Unless you've made a prior appointment or your business is especially pressing, we'll have to ask you to leave."

"Did you miss the part where I'm High Summoner Yuna's daughter?"

"Riza," Paine said, stepping up and putting a hand on my shoulder. She turned to the guards and said, "We want to talk to him about the disappearances happening across Spira."

The guards looked at each other briefly. "Just a moment," one of them said. He turned and opened one of the doors part way, stepping inside and saying something I couldn't make out to someone on the other side. Then he reemerged, and opened the door wider for us. "Step inside."

We filed in through the doors, to find another guard waiting for us. "I'll escort you to the General's chamber, but I can't guarantee he'll have time for you."

The next thing, we were being led through a banquet hall to an opening at the back that looked rather out of place. "That doorway was concealed the last time I was here," Paine commented.

"Things have changed since the Leblanc Syndicate left here," the guard said.

He guided us through a series of halls, which, from the way Paine was looking at them, I guessed had also changed some. Evidently the walls had been decorated differently before, and not with the symbols of Yevon that adorned them now. I did find it curious that the whole way the guard was holding a glowing sphere in front of him; I saw no reason why he needed it. There were no security points we went through, no other guards checking for identification; just more halls. "What's with that sphere?" I finally asked him.

"Just a security measure," was all he said, telling me absolutely nothing. I turned a raised eyebrow to Vidina and Paine, both of whom looked just as suspicious as I was.

We finally walked through a circular door into a room, where we heard a loud, abbraisive voice barking orders from the other side of a doorway in the back wall. "Wait here," the guard said, going through the doorway to the source of that voice. I heard an angry exchange ensue, with the guard's boss not sounding happy at being interrupted.

"Hey, peeps," Camall said suddenly, looking up and down from his readout to a chest in the corner. "Check this out!"

Most of us crowded around him, trying to get a look at his display to see what had gotten him so worked up. "What is it, Camall?" Farru said.

"That's it," Camall stated, pointing to the chest. "Whatever's in that chest is what we came here for."

I needed no more incentive. I made a beeline for the chest, bent down and opened it up. "What is that?" Farru said, looking at it over my shoulder.

"It looks like some kind of crystal," I said, staring at the strangely shimmering angular stone set in its golden base.

"Get away from that!" a voice barked at me. I bolted up to my feet in front of a man with a hard, chiseled face framed by stylized helmet. He was dressed head to toe in ornate, stylistic armor, complete with a red cape to match the vicious, angry eyes that were looking at me.

"You mind telling me what it is?" I asked him.

"In fact I do mind," he snarled. "I am General Valaric. What do you want here?"

"We want to ask if you know anything about the people who have been disappearing," Paine said calmly.

Valaric only scowled. "You interrupt my business for this? This is none of my concern."

Okay, now I was pissed off. "We're talking about my parents, you big prick! Including High Summoner Yuna, for your information."

"Guard!" Valaric called back behind him, summoning the guard who escorted us in. "Get this rabble out of my chamber! And don't waste my time with this kind of nonsense again!" And with that he was gone, marching back through the doorway he came through, while the guard apologetically shrugged and began leading us back out.

"Well, he's a pleasant man," I spat.

"This still leaves us with our main problem," Paine spoke softly as we moved out into the halls, trying not to be heard by the guard. "Valaric obviously isn't going to let us inspect that crystal."

"But we know he's got it," Vidina said. "I'd say that's enough to prove New Yevon is the guilty party, ya?"

"And speaking of which," Jorin said, picking up speed, "we probably want to get away from them as quick as we can."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Camall said.

Seconds later we heard Valaric's voice booming behind us: "STOP!" I turned my head to see him a several of his guards running after us.

Immediately Jorin took off running. "Time to go!"

Realization suddenly dawned on me as I started running after him. "What did you take?"

There wasn't any time for an answer as we all found ourselves running, shaking our escort in our haste to escape Valaric's guard. But just simple running proved not enough, as we discovered first hand what kind of security measure was in place here: Valaric's halls were fiend infested. And without the guard at our side with his glowing sphere to ward them off, we were open game for them. All at once elementals, raldos and couerls were popping up everywhere we ran.

With the guards chasing us, we didn't really have a lot of time to stop and fight them. We destroyed the ones we could; Nadaleen would dispatch the elementals that appeared, and Paine or Farru would cut down the raldos that charged us. The couerls were a bit more difficult to deal with; most of them we ultimately had to try to run past to get away from the guards.

In fact there was only one couerl we actually succeeded in defeating. In fact it was one that I defeated. I leapt and slashed at it, dropping it to the ground and dispersing its pyreflies, and was just stupidly grinning from the pride of what I'd accomplished when I felt someone pull on my shoulder. One of the guards had caught up with me and was just starting to yank me towards the rest of his garrison, when Jorin jumped in, socking him in the face.

"Come on!" he said, grabbing my arm and pulling me along as he resumed running.

…Something happened then. I don't know what it was… I just felt something. Even though we were running for our lives, for some reason with Jorin running with me, holding my arm like that, I felt… safe. No, that's not quite it… or maybe it is; I'm not sure. All I know for certain is that out of all the times he'd helped me already, this was the first time I actually felt like thanking him. And that the way his hand was holding my arm felt kind of good.

We kept running, out of Valaric's halls, through the banquet hall, plowing our way through the big red doors back into the caves of Guadosalam, literally knocking the two guards outside off their feet. We ran the rest of the way, out of Guadosalam, and just emerged to the road to the Moonflow outside where the _Explorer_ was waiting for us, and dashed inside. Camall dashed for the intercom port at the entrance, shouting, "Murran! Dyga uvv huf! Kad ic uid uv rana!"

"Ugyo, rumt uh!" Murran called back. I could actually just see Valaric and his guards starting to appear emerging from Guadosalam before the doors closed and we lifted off.

As Guadosalam disappeared beneath us, we made our way up to the bridge. "Well, we're away now," Murran said. "Anyone want to tell me what that was all about?"

All of our eyes turned to Jorin, who was only grinning smugly. "Yeah, what was that about?" Farru said.

"'Fes up, sticky fingers," said Camall.

Jorin reached a hand into his jacket and pulled out… the crystal from Valaric's chest. "Look familiar?"

"How did you…?" I sputtered.

"That's the nice thing about windbags like Valaric," Jorin grinned, "they're too full of hot air to notice when they're being robbed."

"Well I'll be damned," Camall said, "you actually came in handy!"

"Here you go, tinker-man," Jorin said, tossing the crystal to Camall. "Give that to Shinra, let him do his thing. I'm gonna go get a drink." And with that he was out the door.

And for some reason I couldn't stop staring after him.

Camall left to take the crystal to Shinra, and everyone else went to wander the airship on their own, while I still stood there in a sort of a daze. Jorin had never shined brighter in my eyes than he did right then. I finally took off running out the door and through the halls until I caught up with him. "Hey!"

Slowly he turned and looked at me, as I struggled to find something to say… and finally realized there was just one thing I wanted to say to him. "Thank you."

He blinked, widening his eyes and turning one ear in my direction as he took a step towards me. "I'm sorry, could you please speak in my good ear? I thought I just heard you thank me for something."

"For getting that guard off me," I said. "I just… I just wanted to thank you for that."

He smiled at me, and reached out to stroke my cheek with the backs of his fingers. I suddenly found myself going weak in the knees. "Nobody messes with my favorite klutz but me," he said.

And then he just turned and walked away, continuing on the way he was going. I staggered to the wall and sagged against it. The world around me became a haze; I was barely aware of Vidina walking by, stopping when he saw me and saying, "Hey, Riza, what's with you?"

I didn't answer him; I was too lost in my own little world. For the first time since meeting Jorin, I found I wasn't ashamed to admit to myself how much I was falling for him.


	17. No More Clues

I dreamed of Jorin again that night.

_We were in a huge, cavernous room. The floor beneath our feet was polished and smooth, and lined with the symbols of Yevon. And all along the massive, concave walls were people sleeping in what looked like bubble-like capsules. A pedestal floated in the air above us, and a silhouetted figure in a long, flowing robe stood on it, looking down at us. "You want them?" he asked. "They are here."_

_And suddenly he was not alone on the pedestal. My mom and dad were with him. "Mom! Dad!"_

"_But they are not here for you," the figure echoed._

_Mom and dad looked up at me then, with eyes I didn't know. Eyes that terrified me. Pale, gleaming white eyes filled with none of the love for me that should have been there. Filled with nothing but evil._

_And looking around me, I began noticing that all the people suspended on the walls were looking at me with the same eyes. And then they were moving. The capsules they were suspended in suddenly seemed immaterial, as the people were moving right through them, floating through the air toward me. Their arms were outstretched, clawing fingers reaching to grab, eyes that were wild for me._

_Jorin grabbed my arm. "Come on!" he shouted, and we started running. We ran through ornate, polished halls, trying to outrace the angry screams of the people behind us. I looked behind me, seeing that they were still gaining; they were even coming through the walls to get at us. But still we ran… until we found they were in front of us too. They were coming from every direction, leaving us nowhere to run._

_These people were innocent; somehow I knew that. They were victims, people who had been uprooted from their homes, who didn't ask for any of this. But now their minds were gone, and they now had no purpose except for destruction. And now that purpose was directed at me._

_Jorin pulled me to my knees, wrapping his arms around me. I suddenly felt safer somehow. I knew it was stupid, but if I had to be ripped apart, being in his arms at that moment made it not seem so bad._

…

_Moments passed with nothing happening. Slowly I opened my eyes, and began to lift my head. The crowd around us had become motionless, except for seeming to shimmer like a fog. It was like they'd become just images on a sphere screen. And standing in front of us was that boy in the purple hooded vest, the one I dreamed of before. "It's coming," he said._

I think that was when I woke up.

For two days after that, nothing happened. Shinra ran all the tests he could think of on that crystal. He told us that there was definitely some kind of signal being sent out from it, but nothing he did could identify what it was doing. And in the meantime, we just kind of cruised aimlessly around Spira, having no other leads to go on. So we passed the time however we could; I sparred with Paine, Vidina and I practiced our blitzball moves, and Farru and Nadaleen continued sneaking around and making out when they thought we weren't looking.

I started acting a little less hostile and a little friendlier towards Jorin. I began catching myself smiling when he walked into a room, and admiring myself in the mirror with the necklace he gave me. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't attracted to him from the moment he saved my sorry butt in Luca, but I was finally becoming okay with that. Maybe he wasn't such a scumbag after all. Maybe I didn't have to be ashamed of how I got tingles whenever he smiled at me.

On the third day I finished practicing with Vidina and decided to head to the airship's lounge for some refreshment, and found Jorin relaxing at the bar. "Hiya, klutz," he said. Hey, that's another thing: I'd even stopped being annoyed at him calling me that. In fact, I was starting to find it kind of endearing.

"Hi, Jorin."

"That's it?" he said as I sat down next to him. "Just 'hi?' No insults? No threats of violence? I think you're losing your edge, klutz."

"Oh, is that what you think, scum breath?" I said with a friendly grin. "I could always fix that."

"Why don't you?"

"Okay…" I leaned in and looked him straight in the eye. "I'm gonna beat you 'til your hands are so busted you'll never pick pockets again."

He looked back at me, raising an eyebrow… and finally choked out laughing. "What was that? That was pitiful!"

I felt myself turning red with embarrassment. He was absolutely right; I hadn't even tried with that.

"I think I know what you need," he said, getting to his feet and moving behind me.

"Yeah? What's that?"

He leaned in close to my ear. "Incentive."

I watched him as he started walking away. Then he suddenly turned back to me, and held up my crystal necklace. "Missing something?"

My fingers immediately went to my neck, where the necklace had been just a moment ago. He had snatched it off my neck without me even noticing. "Hey, give me that back!"

"You want it? Come and get it."

Oh, I came to get it alright. I _launched_ myself at him, piledrivering him to the floor and proceeding to wrestle with his arms as he kept the necklace constantly just out of my reach. "You give me that back, or I'll cut those sticky hands of yours off and throw you off the ship!"

"Now that's what I'm talking about!" he beamed. "That's my klutz!"

We kept wrestling like that, me futilely trying to grab the necklace back from him, until he rolled us over. Suddenly I was lying on the floor with him on top of me, staring into my eyes, and both of us stopped moving. All I could do was stare back at him, hearing nothing but the pounding of my own heart. His head began slowly descending toward me, and I realized my own was rising to meet him…

"Get a room already, guys."

We looked up to see Camall walking to the bar, watching us with an amused look. "It was bad enough when we only had one pair of lovebirds running around here."

I grimaced. "Get off me!" I barked, shoving Jorin aside and rising to my feet. I took a few steps away, then stopped, turned back and snatched the necklace from him. "Thank you very much."

"No use being coy, missy," Camall grinned, pouring himself a drink. "I see right through the both of you."

The intercom crackled and Murran's voice echoed through the room: "Everybody to the bridge!"

I didn't know whether to be disappointed or relieved, glancing back at Jorin.

I began heading to the bridge, with Jorin close behind me, while Camall hung behind a moment to finish his drink. When we got to the bridge, Paine and Vidina were already there, and even though it was hard to tell under her trademark stoicism, I was pretty sure Paine looked concerned about something. Farru and Nadaleen showed up a few seconds later, with Camall not far behind.

"Did Shinra find something?" Farru asked. I thought it was unlikely, given that Shinra wasn't on the bridge with us.

"No, he hasn't," Paine said. "And we have another concern. I just spoke with Gippal. He told me he's been in contact with Nooj, and they've found that neither of them has heard from Baralai in months, and all their recent attempts to contact him have failed. As of right now, it seems nobody has any idea where he is."

"Do they think he's been abducted too?" Nadaleen said.

"The former praetor of New Yevon?" Vidina remarked. "That's awful convenient, ya?"

"The last time anybody reports to have seen him is when Roumsey took over as praetor," Paine said.

"Hey, if we're thinking what I think we're thinking," I said, "then this mess started way before what happened on Gagazet."

"Roumsey did more than just take over the group," Vidina said, "he got rid of the old boss."

"What are we supposed to do about this now?" Farru asked everyone. "Go back to Bevelle and make Roumsey tell us what he did with Baralai? Last time we tried that it didn't go so well."

"I don't want to go back to Bevelle," Nadaleen put in.

For a moment nobody said anything. Then all at once, Jorin turned and wordlessly walked off the bridge. "Hey, where are you going, pickpocket?" Camall asked him.

Jorin didn't say a word as the door closed behind him.

"Well that was odd," Farru said. "Even for him."

"Ah, forget him," Vidina said.

Ultimately none of us had any ideas. The only thing that had changed was that the mystery had deepened, and we still had no more clues aside from waiting on Shinra's analysis. I will say, though, that the way Paine looked right then… I'd seen her placid veneer disturbed before: when she brought us the news about Kimahri; when we saw the results of the attack in Luca; when we saw Rikku on Steel Island. But this was different.

As most of us started leaving the bridge, I decided to bring it up with the only two among us who I was fairly certain knew Paine as well as I did. "Hey, Vidina, Farru."

The three of us gathered in the corridor while Nadaleen and Camall went off in their own directions. "What's up, Riza?" Vidina asked me.

"Did you guys notice the way Paine looked in there?"

"Whaddya mean?" Vidina asked, looking puzzled.

"Yeah, I did," Farru nodded.

"It was like learning about Baralai disappearing really disturbed her," I said.

"Why shouldn't it?" Vidina said. "That wasn't exactly good news."

"In case you haven't noticed, Vidina," Farru said, "we haven't had a lot of good news lately, and none of it has made her look like that."

"Guys," I said, the wheels in my head starting to turn harder, "what do you know about this Baralai guy?"

"I don't know, I never met him," Farru said.

"I think Paine used to run with him and Gippal and Nooj back in the old Sin days, ya?" Vidina said.

"Do you think…" I began, still chewing on the thought that had entered my brain.

"What?" Farru said.

"Do you think there was something between her and Baralai? Like, intimately I mean?"

Farru and Vidina looked at each other. "For all we know, there could've been," Farru offered. "It's not like Paine would tell us if there was."

"If she was so close to the guy, don't you think she should've found out about him disappearing a long time ago?" Vidina put in.

"I don't know, I'm just grasping at straws here," I said.

"Well maybe if we just asked her…" Farru thought out loud.

"Uh, you do remember this is Paine we're talking about, right?" I said. "Last time I checked, prying into her past wasn't exactly the way to her heart."

"Then what do you want us to do?" Vidina asked.

Not for the first time that day, none of us could think of anything to say. After a long silence, I began marching back toward the bridge. "Hey, Riza!" Vidina called after me.

I got to the bridge to find that Paine had already left it. "Where's Paine?" I asked.

"Oh, she left to go find Shinra," Murran answered. "Looked like she had a few things to talk about with him."

I nodded and made my way to the elevator, heading down to the lower decks. I got to Shinra's workstation, to find that not only was Paine not there, but neither was Shinra. They must have been somewhere else on the ship, I figured, and thought I might as well go find them…

I stopped then, turning back to the workstation. Something seemed wrong. I stepped up to the console. His computer equipment looked like it was all together, and while I couldn't have even tried to guess what all of the machina he used was, it all seemed to be there… but something was missing. Something that should have been on that empty base, the one with the little red light in the middle, and the disconnected tubes lying around it…

…where the crystal should have been.

I ran. I ran all over the ship, checking all the rooms, finally finding Paine and Shinra talking with Camall in one of the lower lounges. "Riza?" Paine asked, on seeing me enter.

"Something wrong?" Camall said.

"Shinra," I panted, "where's the crystal?"

"What do you mean? It's at my workstation, isn't it?"

"No, that's what I'm saying. I was just there, and it's not."

Immediately everyone was on their feet and running for Shinra's workstation. I hurried behind them, arriving back at the workstation a few seconds after they did, seeing them observing the empty spot where the crystal was supposed to be. Shinra's hand went to his intercom button. "This is Shinra. Everybody report to my workstation now!"

Moments later the station was crowded up with our group plus all of the Al Bhed crew who didn't have their hands full flying the airship. "The crystal is gone," Shinra uttered, the accusatory tone in his voice barely concealed. "Where is it?"

We all looked around at each other, and then Farru spoke the inevitable two words that nonetheless made my heart drop into my stomach:

"Where's Jorin?"

Indeed, our resident thief and immediate most likely suspect was not among us. But he couldn't have taken it, could he? Not after the way he got it for us in the first place. Why would he steal it from us now?

_Riza, since when did you become such a pushover? A pretty boy dazzles you with his smile, and you totally forget what a scumbag he always was?_

All of us began fanning out, searching every corner of the ship. Several minutes later when we all met back up on the bridge, no one reported finding him, but one Al Bhed crewman reported something in Al Bhed that made Camall hang his head.

"What did he say?" I asked.

Camall lifted his head. "He said there's a glider missing. Jorin's gone."

I couldn't believe it. He did it! He really took it! Our only potential clue left, and he just took it!

"That sneaky, no-good, backstabbing dirtball!" Vidina shouted.

Vidina's rant didn't even come close to what I was thinking about him right then, my blood boilding and my clenched so hard I might have torn the skin of my knuckles. Every harsh and angry word I could think of ran through my mind, and when I ran out I made up a few new ones. I couldn't believe I ever had any fuzzy feelings for that bastard!

"Not to worry," Shinra said, moving to a computer console along the side wall. "I planned ahead." He pulled up a display and began running through maps and typing through the readouts.

"What are you doing?" I asked him.

"I planted a tracing device on the crystal just in case something like this happened."

"Then you know where he is?" Farru said.

"We passed over Mushroom Rock a little while ago," Shinra said. "He's on the Mi'ihen Highroad now, heading south toward Luca. Probably thinks that's the best place to hawk it."

"Then we know just where to find him," Vidina grinned eagerly, squeezing his fist.

"And when we do, I'm gonna wring his rotten neck until his eyes pop out and use them for marbles!" I spat.

Hey, he was right: a little incentive was exactly what I needed to make my threats better.


End file.
